This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 

JAN  1  "^   1958 


UNWti 


RN  BRANCH, 

F  CALIFORNIA, 


LIBRARY, 


BOOKBINDINGS    OLD    AND    NEW 


«4l4 


^^<m. 


LIBRO  LLAMADO  RELOX  DE  PRINCIPES. 

SIXTEENTH   CENTURY   BINDING  WITH  THE 
ARMS  OF  FRANCIS   I. 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New 


Notes  of  a  Book-Lover 

IVitb  an  Account  of  the  Grolier  Club 
of  New  York 


By  Brander  Matthews 
38^4- 

Illusti^ated 


New  York  •   Macmillan  and  Co.  •   London 
Mdcccxcv 

All  rights  reserved 


Copyright,  1895, 
By  MACMILLAN  AND  CO. 


J.  S.  Cushing  &  Co.  -  Berwick  &  Smith. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


I 

v5 


f^ 
d 


AA   4-S  b 


THESE    STRAY    NOTES    OF    A    WANDERING    BOOK-LOVER 

ARE   INSCRIBED   TO 

THAT  COMPACT   BODY   OF   AMERICAN   BIBLIOPHILES 

THE   GROLIER   CLUB 


CONTENTS. 


BOOKBINDINGS   OF   THE   PAST. 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I.  Grolier  and  the  Renascence 5 

II.  De  Thou  and  "  Le  Gascon" 47 

III.  Padeloup  and  Derome 68 


^  BOOKBINDINGS    OF   THE    PRESENT. 

i 

I.  The  Technic  of  the  Craft oi: 

II.  The  Binders  of  To-day 119 

III.  The  Outlook  for  the  Future 151'' 


COMMERCIAL    BOOKBINDING. 

I.    The  Antiquity  of  Edition  Binding 171 

II.    The  Merits  of  Machine  Binding 182 

III.  The  Search  for  Novelty 209 

IV.  Stamped  Leather o     .  216 

BOOKS    IN    PAPER-COVERS. 

I.    The  Summer  Clothes  of  Fiction 233 

II.     The  Influence  of  the  Pictorial  Poster       .     .     .  246 

III.     British  and  American  Paper-covers 264 

vii 


viii  Contents. 

THE    CxROLIER    CLUB    OF    MEW    YORK. 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I.    New  York  and  its  Clubs 291 

II.     Grolier  himself 296 

III.  The  Aims  of  the  Club     ...........  302 

IV.  The  Publications  of  the  Grolier  Club  ....  314 

INDEX 337 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS. 


FULL-PAGE    PLATES. 

PAGE 

LiBRO  Llamado  Relox  de  Principes.     Binding  of  the 

I 6th  Century  with  Arms  of  Francis  L   .       Frontispiece 

Grolier  Binding,  "  Heliodori  " 7 

Grolier  Binding,  "Bessarioni" 11 

Grolier  Binding,  "II  Cortegiano" .  15 

"Benedetti's  Anatomy,"  1537 19 

<- Colloquies  of  Erasmus,"  Basel,  1537 23 

"Erizzo,    Discorso     Sopra    le     Modaglie    Antiche," 

Venice,  1559 27 

Binding  executed  for  Tho.  Maioli,  1536 31 

Italian,  i6th  Century 35 

Binding  executed  by  Clovis  Eve  for  Louis  XI IL     .     .  39 
<' Pandectarum    Juris   Florentini."    Binding  with  the 
Arms  of  France  and  the  Cipher  of  Henry  II.  and 

Diana  of  Poitiers 41 

"Valerii  Maximi  Dictorum."    Bound  by  Nicolas  Eve  45 

Binding  of  the  i6th  Century 49 

Binding  executed  by  Nicolas  Eve,  1578       51 

French,  i6th  Century.     Attributed  to  Clovis  Eve    .  55 

"Arianus,  de  Venatione,"  Paris,  1644.     Bound  by  Eve  59 

French,  17TH  Century.     Attributed  to  "  Le  Gascon"  63 


X  List  of  I  11  list  rat  ions. 

PAGE 

"Office  de  la  Semaine  Sainte."  Bound  by  Padeloup  73 
"Ariosto,   Orlando  Furioso,"  Venice,    1584.     Binding 

OF  Derome  the  Younger ']■] 

French,  i8th  Century.     By  Derome 81 

English,  i8th  Century.     Roger  Payne 91 

"History,   Theory,    and   Practice    of    Illuminating." 

By  Digby  Wyatt.     Bound  by  Zaehnsdorf      ...  99 

"aucassin  and  nicolete.''    bound  by  ruban  ....  i09 

Inside  Cover  of  Preceding 113 

A  Binding  by  Francisque  Cuzin 123 

"In  Memoriam.''    Bound  by  Cobden-Sanderson    .     .     .  133 

A  Binding  by  Cobden-Sanderson 139 

New  Testament.  Bound  by  William  Matthews  .  .  141 
Irving"s   "  Knickerbocker's    History    of    New   York." 

Bound  by  William  Matthews 145 

Inside  Cover  of  Preceding 149 

"Pride  and  Prejudice."'  Designed  by  Hugh  Thomson  185 
"Selections    from    Robert    Herrick."      Designed    by 

E.  A.  Abbey    , 195 

"Goblin  Market."'    Designed  "by  L.  Housman      .     .     .  197 

"Rubaiyat  of  Omar  Khayyam."   Designed  by  E.  Vedder  201 

"Half  Hours  with  an  Old  Golfer"' 205 

"A  Book  of  the  Tile  Club."'    Designed  by  Stanford 

White 213 

■"Century  Dictionary."  Designed  by  Stanford  White  217 
"Merry  Adventures  of   Robin  Hood."    Designed   by 

Hovv'ARD  Pyle 221 

"fHE  Quiet  Life."    Designed  by  Stanford  White  .     .  225 


List  of  1 1  hist  rat  ions.  xi 

PAGE 

''The  Oregon  Trail."    Designed  by  J.  A.  Schweinfurth  229 
Facsimile   of   the   Cover   to    Dickens'   '•  Mystery   of 

Edwin  Drood" 235 

"Little  Dinner."    Designed  by  M.  N.  Armstrong   .     .  243 
"contes    pour    les    bibliophiles."      designed    by    m. 

AURIOL 253 

"UEnfant  Prodigue."    Designed  by  Willette    .     .     .  257 

"  Le  Reve."    Designed  by  Carloz  Schwabe      ....  261 

"Baby's  Opera."    Designed  by  Walter  Crane     .     .     .  273 

"Foes  in  Ambush."    Designed  by  R.  L.  M.  Camden   .     .  275 

"  John  Gilpin."    Designed  by  Randolph  Caldecott     .  279 
Spenser's   "Faerie    Oueene."     Designed    by    Walter 

Crane 281 

"Under  the  Window."    Designed  by  Kate  Greenaway  285 

Grolier  Club  Book  Plate 299 

Grolier  Club  Building 303 

Reduced  Facsimile  of  Title-page  of  Grolier  Club 
Edition  of  "  A  Decree  of  Starre-Chamber,  con- 
cerning Printing" 315 

ILLUSTRATIONS    IN    THE   TEXT. 

Aldine  Tools 29 

A  "Powder"  with  the  Device  of  the  Dauphin  •     •     •      37 

Curved  Gouges 43 

Tools  used  in  the  "  Fanfares  "  .     .     .     ! 54 

Little  Branches 54 

Tools  of  "  Le  Gascon  " 65 

Three  17TI1  Century  Borders 69 


xii  List  of  Illiistnitions. 

PAGE 

A  Uerome  Border 85 

Eighteenth  Century  Tools 86,  87 

A  Binding  by  Cobden-S Anderson 105 

"The  Story  OF  Sigurd."    Bound  by  Cobden-Sanderson  127 
"Atalanta  in  Calydon."     Bound  by  Cobden-Sanderson  128 
"HoJiERi  Ilias."'    Bound  by  Cobden-Sanderson    .     .     .  130 
Shelley's  "Revolt  of  Islam."    Bound  by  Cobden-San- 
derson    131 

"Life  and   Death   of  Jason."    Bound  by  Cobden-San- 
derson                 .     .  136 

"  Les  Chatiments."    Bound  by  Petit 155 

"Art  Out-of-Doors  " 173 

"An  Island  Garden" 174 

"Many  Inventions" 188 

"Evening  Tales" 189 

"Greek  Vase  Pa:ntings" 190 

"The  Chatelaine  of  La  Trinite" 193 

"The  Ballad  of  Beau  Brocade" 194 

Panel  from  Back  and  Cover  of  "Old  Italian  Masters"  207 

"A  Girl's  Life  80  Years  Ago" 211 

"Thumb-nail  Sketches" 220 

"Proofs  from  Scribner's  Monthly."    Designed  by  F. 

Lathrop 239 

"Selected  Proofs."    Designed  by  Stanford  White     .  240 
"  Bric-a-Brac."    Designed  by  Caran  d'Ache   ....  260 
"  Le  Petit  Chien."    Designed  by  Louis  Morin      .     .     .  263 
"The  Century  Illustrated  ]\Ionthly  Magazine."    De- 
signed BY  Elihu  Vedder 264 


List  of  Illustrations.  xiii 

PAGE 

"The  Century."    Designed  by  Stanford  White      .     .  265 
"  English  Illustrated  Magazine."'    Designed  by  Wal- 
ter Crane 266 

'•Harper's  Monthly  "  (English) 267 

'•Harper's  Monthly "  (American) 268 

"Bookbuyer."    Designed  by  Will  H.  Low 269 

Harvard  Graduates'  Magazine 270 

u  pexite  Poucette."    Designed   by  Boutet  de  Monvel  284 

The  Grolier  Arms 295 

Grolier  Club  Card  Invitation 306 

Head-piece  from  Grolier  Club  Edition  of  "Knicker- 
bocker's   'History   of    New   York.'"      Drawn    by 

W.  H.  Drake 318 

Another  drawn  by  Howard  Pyle 319 

Noah's    Log-book  —  Head-piece    from    Grolier    Club 
Edition   of   "Knickerbocker's   "History   of    New 

York.'"    Drawn  by  W.  H.  Drake 320 

Reduced  Facsimile  of  Title-page  of  "Philobiblon"   .  326 

Reduced  Facsimile  of  Last  Page  of  "Philobiblon"   .  327 


BOOKBINDINGS    OF   THE    PAST 


BOOKBINDINGS    OF   THE    PAST 


S  I  begin  to  set  clown  here  these 
rambling  impressions  and  stray  sug- 
gestions about  the  great  bookbind- 
ers of  the  past,  I  am  reminded  of  a 
pleasant  saying  recorded  in  Burton's  "  Book- 
Hunter,"  that  storehouse  of  merry  jests  against 
those  who  love  books  not  wisely  but  too  well. 
Burton  tells  us  that  in  the  hearing  of  a  certain 
dealer  in  old  tomes  and  rare  volumes  a  remark 
was  ventured  that  such  an  one  was  "  said  to 
know  something  about  books,"  which  brought 
forth  the  fatal  answer:  "He  know  about  books? 
Nothing — nothing  at  all,  I  assure  you;  unless, 
perhaps,  about  their  insides." 

The  pertinence  of  this  retort  to  myself,  just 
now,  I  cannot  but  confess  at  once.  What  I 
know  best  about  books  is  their  insides.  And 
yet,  perhaps,  it  is  not  an  unpardonable  sin  for  an 

3 


4  Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

author  to  concern  himself  also  with  the  outside 
of  books  —  if  so  be  he  love  them,  if  he  care  for 
tall  copies,  if  he  be  capable  of  cherishing  the 
good  edition,  the  one  with  the  misprint.  This 
is  why  I  am  emboldened  to  risk  myself  in  a 
voyage  of  retrospection  in  search  of  the  mas- 
ters and  the  masterpieces  of  the  bibliopegic  art. 


I. 

GROLIER    AND    THE    RENASCENCE. 

In  a  letter  written  to  a  friend  in  April,  15 18, 
Erasmus  highly  praised  the  civility,  the  modesty, 
the  integrity,  and  the  munificence  of  his  corre- 
spondent, and  added,  "  You  owe  nothing  to 
books,  but  in  the  future  books  will  give  you  an 
eternal  glory." 

The  man  to  whom  this  was  written  was  a 
Viscount  of  Aguisy,  for  a  while  treasurer  of 
the  army  of  Italy,  then  French  ambassador  to 
Rome,  and  afterward  treasurer  of  France  under 
Francis  I.,  Henry  II,,  Francis  II.,  and  Charles  IX. 
"Born  in  1479,  dying  in  1565,  he  lived  eighty- 
six  years,"  —  so  M.  Le  Roux  de  Lincy,  his 
biographer,  tells  us,  —  "  during  which  he  showed 
himself  always  a  zealous  protector  of  the  learned, 
a  lover  of  the  Q:ood  and  beautiful  books  issued 
by  the  Giunti  and  the  Aldi,  or  by  the  other  pub- 
lishers of  the  time,  and  also  an  ardent  collector  of 

5 


6  Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

coins  and  of  antiquities."  Yet  the  prediction 
of  Erasmus  has  so  far  come  true  that  the  name 
of  the  ambassador  and  treasurer  of  France 
would  be  forgotten  were  it  not  that  the  fame  of 
the  book-lover  has  lingered,  and  spread,  until 
now,  more  than  three  centuries  after  the  death 
of  Jean  Grolier  of  Lyons,  there  is  a  flourish- 
ing club  called  by  his  name  here  in  New  York, 
the  chief  city  of  a  continent  undiscovered  when 
he  was  born. 

Grolier  had  the  good  fortune  to  live  through 
the  glorious  years  of  the  Renascence,  when  all 
the  arts  were  reviving  at  once  and  flourishing 
together;  and  he  had  the  good  judgment  to 
aid  in  the  development  of  the  art  of  book- 
binding to  which  lie  attached  his  name  insep- 
arably. The  art  was  not  new  when  he  began 
to  collect  the  best  works  of  the  best  printers, 
but  it  was  about  to  have  a  new  birth ;  and  when 
it  was  born  again,  he  helped  to  guide  its  steps. 

Perhaps  the  first  bookbinder  was  the  hum- 
ble workman  who  collected  the  baked  clay 
tiles  on  which  the  Assyrians  wrote  their  laws ; 
and   he  was  a  bookbinder  also  who   prepared  a 


gJg.^-^t,vr.t^!a,l„.,yKU.'-.,.-,«..r£l!.a>-..5.t.,.^^.i.,^  I^.^,  7r«f .AlS.-.M-    iitl-^toLrMrf^t.  Ill  '■l.f  .ntlMlnl'iSaimitlirfi.iiija 


fflli 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.  9 

protecting  cylinder  to  guard  the  scrolls  of  papy- 
rus on  which  Vergil,  and  Horace,  and  Martial 
had  written  their  verses. 

Before  the  invention  of  printing,  the  choicer 
manuscripts,  books  of  hours,  and  missals,  were 
made  even  more  valuable  by  sides  of  carved 
ivory,  or  of  delicately  wrought  silver  often 
studded  with  gems.  Even  after  printing  was 
invented,  the  binder  was  called  upon  only  to 
stitch  the  leaves  of  the  book,  all  further  deco- 
ration being  the  privilege  of  the  silversmith. 
Benvenuto  Cellini  was  paid  six  thousand  crowns 
for  the  golden  cover,  carved  and  enriched  with 
precious  stones,  which  he  made  for  a  book  that 
Cardinal  de'  Medici  wished  to  give  Charles  V. 
In  France  the  silversmiths  claimed  the  monop- 
oly of  binding,  and  also  of  dealing  in  the  finer 
stuffs  —  not  merely  in  cloth-of-gold,  but  even  in 
velvet. 

Certain  of  the  books  bound  in  the  monasteries 
were  incased  in  boards  —  veritable  boards,  of 
actual  wood  —  so  thick  that  now  and  again 
they  were  hollowed  out  to  hold  a  crucifix  or  a 
pair   of   spectacles,   although   sometimes   it   was 


10         Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

only  to  make  room  for  an  almanac.  It  is  no 
wonder  that  when  a  tome  thus  ponderously 
begirt  fell  upon  Petrarch  it  so  bruised  his  leg 
that  for  a  while  there  was  danger  of  amputa- 
tion. Even  when  these  real  boards  were  thin, 
they  were  thick  enough  to  conceal  a  worm, 
that  worst  of  all  the  enemies  of  books ;  and 
thus  real  boards,  like  the  German  condottierl 
in  many  an  Italian  city,  destroyed  what  they 
were  meant  to  protect.  In  time  the  genuine 
board  was  given  up  for  a  pasteboard,  which 
was  then  made  by  pasting  together  sheets  of 
paper ;  and  myriads  of  pages  of  books  no  longer 
in  fashion  were  thus  destroyed  to  stiffen  the 
covers  of  newer  volumes.  In  our  day  many 
interesting  fragments  of  forgotten  authors,  and 
not  a  few  curious  and  instructive  engravings, 
have  been  rescued  from  oblivion,  when  the 
decay  of  old  book-covers  has  led  to  the  picking 
apart  of  the  pasteboards  beneath  the  crumbling 
leather. 

With  the  invention  of  printing,  and  the 
immediate  multiplication  of  books,  there  came 
an    urgent    demand    for    workmen    capable    of 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.  13 

covering  a  volume  in  seemly  fashion.  In  many 
a  monastery  the  binderies  must  have  been  in- 
creased hastily  to  meet  the  demand ;  and  we 
can  trace  the  handiwork  of  these  monastic 
craftsmen  by  the  designs  they  imprinted  on 
the  covers  of  the  books  they  bound  —  designs 
made  up  mainly  of  motives  from  the  manu- 
script missals,  from  the  typographic  ornaments 
of '  the  early  printers,  and  from  the  transcripts 
of  those  carvings  in  wood  and  stone  with  which 
the  churches  of  that  time  were  abundantly 
enriched. 

But  the  workshops  in  the  monasteries  did 
not  suffice,  and  leather-workers  of  all  sorts  — 
saddlers,  harness-makers,  and  those  who  put 
together  the  elaborate  boots  and  shoes  of  the 
times  —  were  impressed  into  the  service,  taking 
over  to  the  new  trade  of  bookbinding,  not  only 
their  skill  in  dealing  with  leather,  but  also  the 
tools  and  the  designs  with  which  they  had 
been  wont  to  decorate  the  boots,  the  saddles, 
the  harness,  and  the  caskets  of  fair  ladies  and 
lords  of  high  degree.  For  the  most  part  these 
were  humble  artisans,  lacking  even  in  the  rudi- 


14         Bookbindings  Old  mid  New. 

ments  of  learning.  The  authorities  in  France 
preferred  the  workman  to  be  ignorant  who 
was  called  in  to  bind  the  records  of  the  State 
and  the  royal  books  of  account.  The  late 
Edouard  Fournier,  in  his  essay  on  the  "  Art 
de  la  Reliure  en  France,"  cites  the  contract 
of  one  Guillaume  Ogier  in  Italy,  1492,  as  a 
binder  of  the  registers  of  the  treasury,  in  which 
the  artisan  "  declared  and  made  oath  that  he 
knew  not  how  to  read  nor  to  write." 

Perhaps  one  reason  for  the  superiorit}^  of 
the  early  Italian  bindings  over  the  French 
of  the  same  period  was  that  the  workmen 
employed  in  Italy  were  more  intelligent  and 
better  educated.  In  a  book  printed  by  Aldus 
in  15 13,  the  notice  to  the  binder  is  in  Greek! 
Ambroise  Firmin-Didot  explained  the  anomaly 
of  this  apparently  extraordinary  culture  on  the 
part  of  the  handicraftsmen  of  that  era  by  sug- 
gesting that  the  workmen  employed  by  Aldus 
—  who  was  binder  as  well  as  printer  —  were 
many  of  them  Greeks  who  had  been  driven  to 
Venice  after  the  taking  of  Constantinople  by 
the    Turks.       Every    reader    of    "  Romola "   will 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.  1 7 

remember  the  influence  exercised  on  the  Italian 
renascence  by  the  personal  presence  of  the 
Greeks ;  and  in  no  art  was  this  influence  more 
immediate,  more  permanent,  or  more  beneficial, 
than  in  the  art  of  bookbinding. 

We  know  that  Grolier  was  in  Italy  in  15 12, 
and  that  he  was  still  at  Milan  in  1525.  He 
was  a  friend  and  a  patron  of  Aldus.  "  No 
book  left  the  Aldine  press,"  M.  Le  Roux  de 
Lincy  declares,  "  without  several  copies,  some 
on  vellum,"  some  on  white  or  coloured  paper, 
being  specially  printed  for  the  library  of  the 
French  collector.  Voltaire  says  that  "  a  reader 
acts  toward  books  as  a  citizen  toward  men ; 
he  does  not  live  with  all  his  contemporaries, 
he  chooses  a  few  friends."  Grolier  chose  for 
his  friends  the  best  books  and  the  most  beauti- 
ful ;  he  was  fond  of  a  good  author  no  less  than 
of  a  wide  margin.  As  Dr.  Holmes  tells  us,  a 
library  "  is  a  looking-glass  in  which  the  owner's 
mind  is  reflected " ;  and  it  is  a  noble  portrait 
of  the  man  which  we  get  when  we  look  at 
the  books  of  Jean  Grolier.  He  was  a  lover 
of  the  New  Learning.  His  praises  are  repeated 
c 


1 8  Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

in  many  a  dedication  from  the  scholars  and 
tlie  publisher-printers  of  the  period.  Many  a 
book  was  brought  out  wholly,  or  partly,  at  his 
expense.  The  managers  of  the  Aldine  press 
often  borrowed  money  from  him,  and  never 
applied  in  vain.  He  quarrelled  once  with  Ben- 
venuto  Cellini,  but  he  was  a  close  friend  of 
Geoff roy  Tory.  He  was  a  scholar,  as  is  at- 
tested by  the  elegant  Latinitv  of  his  extant 
correspondence.  He  was  an  artist  of  not  a 
little  skill  with  the  pencil,  as  a  sketch  in  his 
copy  of  the  "  Maxims  '*   of  Erasmus  proves. 

Fournier  thought  that  perhaps  Grolier  him- 
self designed  the  graceful  arabesques  and  inter- 
woven bands  which  characterize  the  covers  of 
his  books.  "  Compared  with  the  other  bindings 
of  the  same  time,  and  of  the  same  country, 
those  of  Grolier  are  distinguished  by  an  un- 
equalled and  unfailing  taste,"  They  are  closely 
akin  to  the  bindings  executed  for  Aldus  in 
Venice, ,  and  to  the  bindings  then  made  by 
the  Italian  workmen  elsewhere  in  Italy,  in 
France,  and  even  in  England :  but  they  are 
somehow  superior ;    they   have   a   note    of   their 


BENKDF.TTl'S   ANATOMY,"     1537.      OCTAVO,   4X634    INCHES;     BROWN    CALK, 
(FROM    SAUVAGE   COLLECTION.      OWNED   BY    MR.   SAMUEL   P.  AVERY.) 

19 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.  2 1 

own ;  they  are  the  result  of  a  finer  artistic 
sense ;  and  the  longer  I  study  the  books  bound 
during  the  Italian  renascence,  the  more  I  am 
inclined  to  agree  with  Fournier  when  he 
asserts  that  Grolier,  "  with  Italian  methods, 
created  a  French  art."  Certainly  he  gave  to 
his  library  so  definite  an  individuality  that  the 
volumes  which  composed  it  three  hundred  years 
ago  are  now  treated  as  veritable  works  of  art ; 
they  have  their  catalogue,  like  the  pictures  of 
a  great  painter,  or  the  plates  of  a  great  en- 
graver; they  are  numbered.  Every  existing 
book  bound  for  Grolier  has  its  pedigree,  and 
is  traced  lovingly  from  catalogue  to  catalogue 
of  the  great  collectors. 

The  beauty  of  the  Grolier  bindings  is  in 
the  lavish  and  tasteful  ornamentation  of  the 
sides.  In  the  early  days  of  printing,  and  when 
the  traditions  of  the  days  of  manuscripts  still 
were  dominant,  the  shelves  of  a  library  inclined 
like  a  reading-desk,  and  the  handsome  volumes 
lay  on  their  sides,  taking  their  ease.  Books 
then  were  not  packed  together  on  level  shelves 
as    they    are    now,   shoulder    to    shoulder,    like 


22         Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

common  soldiers ;  but  each  stately  tome  stood 
forward  by  itself  singly,  like  an  officer.  So 
the  broad  sides  of  the  ample  folios  seemed  to 
invite   decoration. 

The  first  books  which  Grolier  had  bound  in 
Italy  are  similar  in  their  style  of  decoration 
to  those  then  sent  forth  from  the  Aldine  press ; 
a  few  have  elegant  arabesques,  setting  off  a 
central  shield,  but  most  of  them  have  simple 
geometrical  designs  in  which  interlacing  bands, 
formed  by  parallel  lines  gilt-tooled,  are  relieved 
by  solid  ornaments  very  like  those  with  which 
the  Aldus  family  then  adorned  the  pages  of 
the  books  they  were  printing,  and  which  were 
suggested  some,  no  doubt,  by  the  illuminations 
of  the  old  missals,  but  more,  beyond  question, 
by  the  Oriental  traditions  of  the  Greek  work- 
men. The  distinguishing  quality  of  these  or- 
naments, familiar  enough  to  all  who  know  the 
Aldine  style,  was  grace  united  to  boldness. 

Look  at  a  specimen  of  the  earlier  of  Grolier's 
bindings.  Note  the  simplicity  of  the  interlaced 
bands,  the  sharp  strength  of  the  enriching 
arabesques,  the    skill  with  which  they  are  com- 


"  COLLO(^)UiF.s  oi-'  I'.KASMrs,"  i;asI':i,,  1537.     ijiAKio,  7     4;;  iiMiiKS;   i;ko\VN 

CALF.       (FROM     BLENHKIM    COLLECTION.      OWNED   13Y    MR.    BRAYTON    IVES.) 


23 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.  25 

billed ;  and  then  remember  that  this,  hke  every 
other  design,  was  laboriously  tooled  bit  by  bit, 
and  line  by  line,  each  separate  ornament  being 
stamped  on  the  cover  at  least  twice,  once  to 
impress  the  leather,  and  again  to  attach  the 
gold. 

It  is  only  some  understanding  of  the  technic 
of  an  art  which  enables  us  to  appreciate  its 
triumphs.  The  art  of  the  bookbinder  is  lim- 
ited by  the  "  tools  "  he  uses.  A  "  tool,"  in  the 
parlance  of  the  trade,  is  the  brass  implement 
at  the  end  of  which  is  cut  the  little  device, 
ornament,  or  part  of  an  ornament,  that  is  sep- 
arately to  be  transferred  to  the  leather.  Every 
figure,  every  leaf,  every  branch,  every  part  of 
the  desio^n,  is  made  of  one  or  more  tools. 
The  binder  conceives  his  general  scheme  of 
decoration,  knowing  his  tools ;  and  it  is  by 
a  Combination  and  repetition  of  these  tools 
that  he  forms  his  design.  One  might  almost 
say  that  tools  are  style ;  certainly  it  is  obvious 
that  the  tools  changed  form  concurrently  with 
every  modification  of  taste  in  bookbinding  ;  and 
a  study  of  the  tools,  as  they  have  been  modified 


26  Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 


ii 


during  tlic  past  three  centuries,  is  essential  to 
any  real  understanding  of  the  art  of  book- 
binding. 

Thus  we  see  that  when  Grolier  becran  to  Qrather 
his  library,  the  binder  used  tools  copied  from 
Aldine  typographic  devices,  and  impressed  in 
gold  on  the  cover  of  a  book  that  figure  which 
on  the  printed  page  was  a  solid  black.  But 
the  finer  taste  of  the  Renascence  soon  discov- 
ered that,  although  the  broad  black  of  the 
Aldine  devices  was  pleasing  on  a  white  page, 
an  excess  of  solid  gold  was  less  satisfactory  on 
the  side  of  a  book.  So  they  made  these  tools 
sometimes  hollowed,  —  that  is,  in  outline  merely, 
which  lightened  them  instantly,  —  and  some- 
times azured  —  that  is,  crossed  by  horizontal 
lines,  as  in  the  manner  of  indicating  "  azure  "  in 
heraldrv.  Then,  havino-  the  same  device  in 
three  different  values  where  before  thev  had 
but  one,  the  adroit  binder  was  able  to  vary  and 
combine  them  as  he  needed  solid  strength  or 
easy   lightness. 

The  next  step  was  to  increase  the  variety 
and   the   complication    of  the    interlacing   bands 


"  ERIZZO,  DISCORSO  SOPRA  LE  MOUAGLIE  ANTICHE,"  VENICE,  1559.  IN 
8VO  (IMPRIMIS  EXPOSITION,  NO.  526.  PLAT  RECTO).  KOUND  EOR  GROLIER 
IN  THE  STYLE  OF  THOSE  OF  GEOFFROY   TORY. 

It  is  the  only  example  known  of  work  of  this  class  bearing  the  name  of 
Grolier.  The  device  is  on  the  vorso.  (From  "  Lcs  Reliures  d'Art  A  la  Biblio- 
thtque  Nationale."     By  permission  of  Edouard  Rouvcyrc.) 

27 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 


29 


—  and  it  is  these  interlacing  bands  which  are 
perhaps  the  chief  characteristic  of  the  Grolier 
bindings.  Instead  of  being  indicated  by  two 
fine  Hnes  of  gold,  the  bands  were  marked  out 
by  three  lines.  Finally,  the  bands  traced  by 
plain  gold  tooling  were  enriched  by  paint. 
Adroitly  contrasted   colours   were   chosen  to  fill 


ALUINE  TOOLS,    HOLLOW. 


ALDINE  TOOLS,   AZURED. 


up  the  hollow  bands  which  twisted  above  and 
below  one  another  all  over  the  cover  of 
the  book.  To-day  these  painted  ribbons  and 
the  gilding  of  the  design  are  sadly  dulled  by  the 
years;  but  when  they  were  fresh,  nothing  could 
have  been  more  magnificently  resplendent  than 
this  polychromatic  decoration. 


30         Booldiiiidings  Old  and  New. 

On  one  or  the  other  side  of  Grolier's  books 
was  the  leoend  "  lo.  Grolierii  et  amicorurn,"  a 
form  which  M.  Le  Roux  de  Lincy  thinks  he 
may  have  borrowed  from  his  friend  Mai'oH, 
an  ItaHan  collector,  of  whom  almost  nothing 
is  known,  although  his  books  are  greatly  sought 
after — Grolier  had  several  of  them.  M.  Cle- 
ment de  Ris,  the  author  of  a  pleasant  volume 
on  the  "  Amateurs  d'Autrefois,"  doubts  whether 
Grolier  ever  lent  his  books,  despite  this  altru- 
istic declaration.  But  M.  Le  Roux  de  Lincy 
has  been  able  to  trace  not  a  few  duplicates 
and  triplicates  from  Grolier's  collection,  —  he 
has  even  found  five  copies  of  the  same  Aldine 
edition  of  Vergil,  —  whence  it  is  fair  to  con- 
clude that  the  book-lover  meant  the  legend  to 
be  interpreted  in  the  most  liberal  manner,  in 
that  he  stood  ready  to  give  his  books  to  his 
friends,  even  though  he  was  not  willing  to  lend 
them.  Indeed,  to  lend  a  beloved  volume  is 
the  last  thing  a  true  bibliophile  can  be  coaxed 
to  do,  althousih  the  lendino;  of  books  was  a  form 
of  charity  specially  recommended  by  a  Council 
of    Paris  so  far  back    as    12 12.      We  know  that 


BINDING  EXECUTED  FOR  THO.  MAlOLI,  1536.  (FROM  "  MANUEL  HIS- 
TORIQUE  ET  BII3LIOGRAPHIQUE  DE  L'AMATEUR  DE  RELIURE."  BY  PER- 
MISSION  OF    L£0N    GRUEL.) 

31 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.  33 

Grolier   gave   four  of    the  best  of    his  books  to 
the  father  of  J.  A.  cle  Thou. 

The  books  bound  for  Maioh  are  almost  as 
beautiful  as  the  books  bound  for  Grolier,  but, 
as  M.  Marius-Michel  remarks,  Maioli  had 
some  poor  bindings,  and  Grolier  had  none. 
Perhaps  it  was  also  due  to  the  example  of 
Maioli  that  Grolier  chose  a  motto,  which  ran, 
"  Portio  mea,  Domine,  sit  in  terra  viventium," 
modified  from  Psalm  cxli.  Maioli's  was,  "  Ini- 
mici  mea  michi,  non  me  michi."  Marc  Laurin 
of  Watervliet,  a  friend  of  Grolier  and  of  Maioli, 
and  a  book-lover  like  them,  had  for  his  motto 
"  Virtus  in  arduo."  In  as  marked  a  contrast 
as  may  be  with  the  friendly  legend  on  Gro- 
lier's  books  is  the  motto  which  the  learned 
Scaliger  borrowed  from  the  Vulgate,  *'  Ite  ad 
vendentes  "  —  "Go  ye  rather  to  them  that  sell" 
(Matthew  xxv.  9).  __ 

Prefixed  to  the  "  Catalogue  of  an  Exhibi- 
tion of  Recent  Bookbindings,  i860- 1890,"  held 
at  the  Grolier  Club  in  New  York  in  Decem- 
ber,  1890,  was  a  note  on  styles,  in  which  there 


34  Bookbindings  Old  and  A'Cio. 

was  a  dixision  of  the  best  known  work  of  the 
Renascence  into  three  classes,  rather  arbitra- 
rily designated  as  "  Aldine  or  Italian,"  "  Maioli," 
and  "  Grolier."  The  Aldine  was  said  to  have 
ornaments  of  solid  face  without  any  shading 
whatever,  and  these  ornaments  were  of  Arabic 
origin,  and  such  as  were  used  by  Aldus  and 
the  other  early  Italian  printers ;  the  Maioli  was 
said  to  be  composed  generally  "  of  a  frame- 
work of  shields  or  medallions,  with  a  design  of 
scrollwork  flowing  through  it " ;  and  the  Grolier 
was  said  to  be  "  an  interlaced  framework  of  geo- 
metrical figures,  circles,  squares,  and  diamonds, 
with  scrollwork  running  through  it,  the  orna- 
ments of  which  are  of  Moresque  character,  and 
often  azured." 

Of  course,  a  classification  of  this  sort  is 
lacking  in  scientific  precision,  since  all  three 
of  these  styles  existed  at  the  same  time,  and 
are  to  be  found  on  books  bound  for  Grolier, 
although  there  is  no  doubt  that  he  most  often 
affected  the  interlacing  geometrical  patterns. 
That  three  styles  different  enough  to  bear  dis- 
tinct names  should  flourish  side  by  side  is  evi- 


ITALIAN,  i6TH   century. 

35 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.  37 

dence,   were    any    needed,    of    the    extraordinary 
artistic  richness  of  the   Itahan  renascence. 

Nor  is  this  the  whole  story.  While  Grolier  and 
his  fellow-collectors  were  developing  a  French  art 
in  Italy,  and  with  Italian  workmen,  the  art  was 
taking  root  in  France,  and  flourishing  lustily. 
Born  in  the  reign  of  Louis  XII.,  Grolier  died  in 
the  reign  of  Charles  IX.,  and  he  was  a  witness  of 
the  sturdy  development  of  art  in  France  under 
Francis  I.  and  Henry  II.  While  he  was  having 
books  bound  in  one  or  another  of  the  three  con- 
temporary styles  of  Italian  origin,  two  styles  were 
in  process  of  evolution  a 

in   France,  without  his  ^5 

assistance,  and  perhaps  JIL    ^^Bl   JIj^ 

without     his     approval.  ^      ^^      ^ 

Certainly   there  is  now  ^    JjL  <W»    Irm,  <^ 


^ 


j   extant  no  volume  known 

j   to  have  belonged  to  Gro- 
lier decorated  either  with 

j   a  seme  (as   the    French 
call  it),  a  "  powder,"  fre-  "f  the  dauphin. 

quently  used  by  Francis  I.,  or  with  the  elaborately 
enriched  central  rectangle,  surrounded  by  a  frame 


I'OWDER      WITH   THE   DEVICE 


38  Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

of  rolling  arabesques,  such  as  we  find  Henr)^  II. 
to  have  been  fond  of. 

In  the  "  powder "'  there  is,  perhaps,  a  lightly 
tooled  fillet  around  the  side  of  the  book,  and 
perhaps  a  coat  of  arms,  or  some  other  vignette, 
in  the  centre,  and  even  at  each  corner,  but 
the  binding  derives  its  decorative  richness  from 
the  sowing  broadcast  of  the  kings  initial,  or 
of  the  royal  lily,  or  of  some  other  single  tool, 
repeated  regularly  in  horizontal  and  perpendic- 
ular lines.  Sometimes  it  contains  but  one  device 
thus  repeated  geometrically,  and  sometimes  two 
or  three  devices  are  alternated,  and  agreeably 
contrasted.  In  the  hands  of  a  feeble  binder  the 
"  powder  "  degenerates  easily  into  stiff  and  barren 
monotony ;  but  when  the  devices  are  adroitly 
varied,  and  made  to  sustain  each  other  skil- 
fully, it  is  capable  of  indisputable  dignity  and 
streno^th. 

A  kindred  artful  employment  of  monogram 
and  personal  emblem  it  is  which  gives  distinc- 
tion to  the  beautiful  bindins^s  which  bear  the 
double  H  of  Henry  II.,  and  the  triple  crescent 
of  Diana  of  Poitiers.      The  famous  Henri  Deux 


^*t.     rvc^      ,f^     si'h,  ^  \\\ 
rri^^s      r:^:\     .r.%      <c;'r:.,  , 


■^T^     #      "t*^     *     ^'T-^  •▼*  ~T'    "t 


1'  ^^T"  ^  "rv* 


.■-■,r«         >-,■-%        .■'i^.       .T^-'X'i 
Ct'.^;",  /-^fri  »^:-.  ^'^ 


BINDING  EXECUTED  BY  CLOVIS  feVE  FOR  LOUIS  XIII.  (FROM  "  MANUEL 
HISTORIQUE  ET  BIBLIOGRAPHIQUE  DE  L'AMATEUR  DE  RELIURE."  BY 
PERMISSION   OF   LEON   GRUEL.) 

39 


1 


"  PANDECTARUxM  JURIS  FLORENTINI,  VOL.  II."  BINDING  WITH  THE  ARMS 
OF  FRANCE  SURROUNDED  WITH  SCROLLS,  AND  WITH  THE  CIPHER  OF 
HENRY  II.  AND  LMANA  OF  POITIERS.  IN  THE  MAZARIN  LIBRARY.  (FROM 
"  LA  RELIURE  FRANCAISE,"  BY  M.  MARIUS-MICHEL.  BY  PERMISSION  OF 
DAMASCENE  MORGAND.) 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.         43 

ware,  for  which  the  lover  of  ceramic  art  longs 
in  vain,  has  not  a  rarer  charm  than  that  of  some 
of  the  bindings  executed  at  the  same  time  and 
under  the  same  inspiration.  M.  Marius-Michel, 
bringing  to  the  study  a  highly  trained  under- 
standing of  the  technic  of  bibliopegic  art,  declares 
that  there  were  in  France  under  Henry  II.  three, 
and  perhaps  four,  binders  of  extraordinary  merit. 
Their  work  survives  to  this  day,  and  is  more  and 
more  admired,  but  their  names  have  perished 
forever. 

It  is  a  pity  that  we  cannot  do  honour  to  the 
memory  of   the   noble   craftsman    who    executed 
some    of    the    most    splendid    bindings    with    no 
other  implements   than   the   straight     ^^*^ 
fillet   and    curved    gouge,   disdaining     ^^^WV 
aid    of   any    engraved    tools   whatso-     ^\^ 
ever.      To    him    we    owe    the    trans-  curved  gouges. 
cendent   folio    "  Pandectarum    Juris    Florentini," 
now  in  the  Mazarin   Library  at   Paris.     M.  Ma- 
rius-Michel   asserts    that    no    binder    had    ever 
such    skill    of   hand.     "  As    clay    is    transformed 
under  the  fingers  of  the  clever  sculptor,  so  the 


44  Bookhindiiigs  Old  and  New. 

learned  arabesques,  the  graceful  volutes,  seemed 
to  be  born  under  his  instruments ;  no  one  has 
ever  carried  to  such  a  degree  the  exquisite  sen- 
timent of  form." 


"VALERII  MAXIMI  DICTORUM  FACTORUMQUE  MEMORABILIUM,  LIBRI  IX." 
BOUND  BY  NICOLAS  EVE.  FROM  THE  LIBRARY  OF  DE  THOU.  (FROM 
"REMARKABLE  BINDINGS  IN  THE  BRITISH  MUSEUM,"  BY  HENRY  B. 
WHEATLEY.) 

45 


II. 

DE    THOU    AND    "  LE    GASCON." 

In  the  history  of  the  bibhopegic  art  the 
names  of  book-lovers  and  of  bookbinders  are 
inextricably  entangled.  At  one  moment  the  dom- 
inant individuality  is  seen  to  be  a  collector  like 
Grolier  or  Mai'oli,  and  at  the  next  it  is  an  artist- 
artisan  like  "  Le  Gascon"  or  Derome.  After 
the  death  of  Henry  II.,  the  great  binders  of  his 
reign  disappear  absolutely;  there  is  no  trace  of 
their  handiwork  or  of  their  tools.  Perhaps  they 
were  Huguenots,  as  French  historians  of  the 
art  have  surmised,  and  were  done  to  death,  or 
fled  the  country,  before  the  promulgation  of 
the  Edict  of  Nantes  in  1598.  Whatever  their 
fate,  the  tradition  was  broken,  and  the  art  of 
bookbinding  developed  on  other  lines  than 
theirs ;  and  the  personality  which  next  comes 
into     view     is    that     of    a     collector  —  Jacques 

Auguste   De  Thou. 

47 


48  Boo/dujidings  Old  and  New. 

When  Grolier  was  in  clanger  of  his  Hfe  De 
Thou's  father  saved  him,  and  Grolier  gave  the 
elder  De  Thou  four  of  the  best  books  of  his 
library.  The  son  was  then  only  nine  years  old, 
but  perhaps  this  was  the  beginning  of  his  love 
for  books  —  a  sacred  fire  which  thus  passed 
from  Grolierius  to  Thuanus  by  a  sort  of  apos-" 
tolic  succession.  Born  in  1553,  De  Thou  trav- 
elled from  1573  to  1582,  paying  a  visit  in  1576 
to  Plantin.  In  1593  he  was  appointed  to  the 
custody  of  the  books  of  the  king,  Henry  IV., 
succeeding  Jacques  Amyot,  the  translator  of 
Plutarch's  "  Lives,"  and  of  the  "  Daphnis  et 
Chloe "  of  Longus.  In  his  new  post  De  Thou 
was  able  to  save  for  the  nation  the  library  of 
Catherine  de'  Medici. 

Swift  characteristically  tells  us  that  "  some 
know  books  as  they  do  lords ;  learn  their  titles 
exactly,  and  then  brag  of  their  acquaintance ;  " 
and  there  are  always  book-collectors  of  this 
sort.  But  De  Thou  was  a  book-lover  of  another 
kind ;  he  knew  his  books,  he  used  them  well, 
he  lived  with  them ;  and  to-day  he  lives  by 
the  fame  they  have  given  him,  since  he  died  in 


BINDING  EXECUTED  BY  NICOLAS  EVE,  I578.  (FROM  "  MANUEL  lUSTO- 
RIQUE  ET  BIBLIOGRAPHIQUE  DE  L'AMATEUR  DE  RELIURE."  BY  PERMIS- 
SION  OF   LEON   GRUEL.) 

51 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.  53 

161 7.  It  is  the  love  of  books  which  has  saved 
his  name  from  oblivion,  as  M.  Clement  de  Ris 
declares  in  his  pleasant  gossip  about  the 
"  Amateurs  d'Autrefois."  "  Distinguished  mag- 
istrate, remarkable  writer,  historian  of  rare  merit, 
statesman  of  exceptional  common  sense  and  of 
great  foresight,  what  survives  is  the  bibliophile. 
Who  remembers  that  he  took  part  in  the  ab- 
juring of  Henry  IV.,  or  that  he  was  one  of  the 
most  active  negotiators  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes  t 
No  one.  Who  reads  the  '  History  of  his  Time  ' } 
— '  that  grand  and  faithful  history,'  as  Bossuet 
called  it.  Again,  no  one.  But  ask  any  petty 
dealer  in  second-hand  books  what  the  emblem 
was  with  which  he  marked  his  books.  He  will 
answer  you  without  the  error  of  a  letter.  A 
collector,  if  he  have  but  an  elevated  taste,  is 
moved  by  respect  for  the  past ;  he  seeks  the 
driftwood  of  time  which  the  present  despises. 
The  future  pays  the  debt  of  the  past "  —  and 
hands  the  collector's  name  down  to  posterity. 

It  was  towards  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Charles 
IX.,  after  the  death  of  Grolier  (1565),   that  we 


54  Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

find  the  first  specimens  of  a  new  style.  The  side 
of  a  book  was  now  covered  by  a  framework  of 
small  compartments  formed  by  double- 
filleted  bands.  At  first  these  com- 
partments were  empty,  and  Henry  III. 
added  to  the  barren  severity  of  the  de- 
sign by  filling  the  central  space  with  a 
stamp  representing  the  crucifixion.  As 
Henry  H.  put  the  bow  and  arrows  and 
triple  crescents  of  the  ^>:ij^  i4r4^ 
unchaste  Diana  on  -^^^i^^W^ 
the  royal  bindings,  so  ™'^  "^''"^  branches. 
the  sombre  Henry  HI.,  taking  life  sadly 
because  of  his  lost  love,  Mary  of  Cleves, 
was  fond  also  of  a  powder  of  tears  and 
of  death's  heads  scattered  through  the 
lilies  of  France.  So  solemn  a  style  of 
decoration  did  not  tempt  his  sister,  Mar- 
earet  of  Valois,  afterward  known  as 
TOOLS  USED  Queen  Margot,  and  she  preferred  a  pow- 
iN  THE      J         £   ii-jarcTuerites,  each    flower   being 

"  FAN-  ^  ^ 

FARES."      framed  in  an  oblong  wreath. 
For   her,   also,  the   cold   austerity  of  the  geo- 
metrically   distributed    compartments    was    done 


F;<KNCH,     16TII    CENTURY.       ATTRIBUTED    TO    CLOVIS    EVE;     liELONI^ED    TO 
MARGUERITE   DE  VALOIS. 


55 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.  57 

away  with,  and  while  the  same  regular  frame- 
work was  retained,  all  the  hollow  spaces  within 
and  without  the  figures,  formed  by  the  double 
fillets,  were  filled  with  little  branches,  with 
spiral  vines,  and  with  a  multitude  of  tiny  tools, 
light,  airy,  and  graceful.  These  are  the  bindings 
which  we  find  on  the  best  of  the  books  of  De 
Thou.  These  are  the  bindings  which  are 
credited  to  the  Eves,  Nicolas  and  Clovis,  two 
brothers  who  were  the  royal  binders  from  1578 
to  1627.  Whether  or  not  they  are  entitled  to 
the  credit  for  the  many  beautiful  bindings 
rather  rashly  attributed  to  them  is  one  of  the 
many  moot  points  in  the  history  of  the  art. 
These  are  the  bindings  now  known  as  "  fanfares  " 
(because  that  was  the  chief  word  in  the  title  of 
an  old  book  which  Thou^?enin  bound  in  this 
style  for  Charles  Nodier  during  the  Restoration), 
These  are  the  bindings  which  served  as  models 
to  that  greatest  of  binders,  who  is  known  to  us 
as  "  Le  Gascon,"  and  who,  so  M.  Marius-Michel 
surmises,  may  have  been  a  pupil  or  an  appren- 
tice of  the  binders  who  worked  for  De  Thou. 


58         Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

After  Grolier,  perhaps  "  Le  Gascon "  is  the 
foremost  personality  in  the  history  of  bookbind- 
ing ;  GroHer  was  not  a  binder  himself ;  he  was  a 
collector,  an  art-patron,  and  when  applied  to  him 
the  term  has  no  taint  of  the  offensiveness  which 
may  attach  to  it  nowadays  ;  and,  as  it  happens, 
we  do  not  know  the  names  of  any  of  the  artist- 
artisans  who  worked  for  Grolier,  and  to  whom 
we  owe  the  many  masterpieces  of  the  most 
magnificent  collection  ever  yet  attempted.  "  Le 
Gascon  "  was  himself  a  binder,  but  this  is  all  we 
know  about  him.  We  do  not  know  for  sure 
whether  or  not  it  was  he  who  covered  the 
immortal  "  Guirlande  de  Julie";  we  do  not  even 
know  whether  "  Le  Gascon  "  was  his  patronymic, 
or  a  mere  nickname.  Probably  it  is  a  sobriquet 
recalling  his  Gascon  origin. 

M.  Leon  Gruel,  in  his  most  interesting  "  Man- 
uel Historique  et  Bibliographique  de  1' Amateur 
de  Reliure  "  (Paris  :  Gruel  &  Engelmann.  1887), 
—  one  of  the  most  valuable  of  many  volumes 
the  present  writer  has  placed  under  contri- 
bution in  the  preparation  of  these  pages, — 
reproduces     a    binding     signed     by     Florimond 


"iRIANUS,   DE   VENATIONE."      PARIS,   1644.      IN   QUAKiw.      ^,.»ii  i^i.viKS    EXPOSITION,   NO.   619. 
)  FLAT  RECTO.) 

i  Bound  by  Eve  with  the  arms  of  Gaston  of  Orleans,  often  attributed  to  the  mysterious  "  Le 
G;con,"  but  which  is  Eve's,  nevertheless.  This  piece  is  curious  in  this  respect,  that  it  marks  the 
hjisition  between  the  flowered  decoration  of  Eve  and  the  pointed  foliages  of  "  Le  Gascon." 
( |om  "  Les  Reliures  d'Art  k  la  BibliothSque  Nationale."     By  permission  of  Edouard  Rouveyre.) 

59 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.         6i 

Badier  (now  in  the  National  Library  in  Paris), 
and  draws  attention  to  the  extraordinary  re- 
semblance in  style  which  this  binding  bears 
to  the  bindings  generally  ascribed  to  "  Le  Gas- 
con." M.  Gruel  ventured  the  hypothesis  that 
Florimond  Badier  might  be  the  real  name  of  the 
man  whose  nickname  was  "  Le  Gascon."  But  M. 
Marius- Michel,  a  practical  binder  himself  (as  is  M. 
Gruel),  in  his  book  about  "La  Reliure  Fran9aise" 
(Paris:  Damascene  Morgand  et  Charles  Fatout. 
iSSo),  —  another  book  to  which  the  writer  owes 
more  than  he  can  here  confess,  —  M.  Marius- 
Michel  had  declared  this  binding  of  Florimond 
Badier's  to  be  the  handiwork  of  some  clumsy  im- 
itator of  "  Le  Gascon,"  who  had  copied  even  the 
dotted  outline  of  a  human  head  which  some  have 
taken  to  be  in  some  sort  the  trade-mark  of  the 
master.  Who  shall  decide  when  decorators 
disagree  ? 

If  a  layman  may  hazard  an  opinion,  it  would 
be  to  the  effect  that  although  Florimond  Badier 
might  well  be  the  true  name  of  "  Le  Gascon," 
yet  the  binding  in  question  is  not  equal  to  the 
best  of  those  accredited  to  the  supreme  artist  of 


62         Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

bibliopegy,  those  marvels  of  taste  and  splendoiir 
wherein  the  utmost  luxury  of  gilding  is  never 
allowed  to  become  vulgar,  tawdry,  or  even 
glaring. 

That  "  Le  Gascon  "  is  the  foremost  of  all  the 
artists  who  have  embellished  a  book-cover  is 
the  verdict  of  his  fellow-craftsmen.  M.  Gruel 
does  not  yield  to  M.  Marius-Michel  in  admira- 
tion of  the  magnificent  masterpieces  which  came 
from  the  hands  of  "  Le  Gascon."  In  all  that  M. 
Marius-Michel  has  written  about  "  Le  Gascon" 
there  is  a  glow  of  devoted  enthusiasm.  Mr. 
William  Matthews  is  as  swift  in  praise ;  and 
Mr.  Cobden-Sanderson,  when  I  asked  him  whom 
he  held  to  be  the  greatest  of  all  binders,  did 
not  hesitate,  but  answered  promptly  and  posi- 
tively, "  Le  Gascon."  As  Keats  has  been  called 
the  poets'  poet,  so  is  "  Le  Gascon "  the  book- 
binders' bookbinder.  But  it  does  not  need  the 
trained  eye  of  the  expert  to  discover  his  surpass- 
ing charm,  the  richness  of  his  gilding,  and  the 
unfailing  delicacy  and  distinction  of  his  design. 
Yet  the  most  characteristic  of  his  bindins^s 
differs    but    little    from    those  of   his    immediate 


FRENCH,  17TH   CENTURY.     ATTRIBUTED  TO   "  LE  GASCON.' 
63 


Bookbindm^s  Old  and  New. 


65 


predecessors  —  in  so  far  at  least  as  the  mere 
structure  and  outline  of  the  decoration  are  con- 
cerned. It  was  only  by  slow  degrees  that  he 
developed   his  own    individuality,  and  . 

to  the  end  of  his  career  he  employed 
the  formal  framework  of  the  fanfares 
whenever  he  had  to  do  a  binding  of 
exceptional  importance. 

Now  and  again,  however,  he  pre- 
ferred a  less  complicated  design,  and 
he  used  a  lace-like  border  and  a  broad 
rectangular  framework,  boldly  tooled, 
and  almost  filled  with  a  dazzling 
array  of  coruscating  spirals,  which  set 
off  the  red  leather  of  the  smaller  cen- 
tral space,  containing  generally  the 
coat-of-arms  of  the  fortunate  owner. 
It  was  only  by  degrees  that  he  in- 
troduced what  was  almost  his  only 
innovation  —  tools  in  which  a  dotted 
line  replaced  the  simple  fillet.  The 
full-face  device  of  the  Aldine  bind- 
inirs  was  first  azured,  to  lif^hten  it 
a   little,    and    then    hollowed    out,   leavint^   it    in 


cf 


% 
«) 
^K 


TOOLS  OF 
LE  GASCON.' 


66         Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

outline  only ;  and  now  it  was  made  still  airier, 
when  it  appeared  only  as  a  string  of  tiny  gilt 
points.  This  dotted  line  is  the  characteristic 
of  "Le  Gascon,"  and  it  gives  their  incomparable 
brilliancy  to  the  best  of  his  bindings.  But  it 
is  merely  one  of  the  implements  at  the  com- 
mand of  his  skill  and  taste,  and  he  would  be 
almost  as  great  an  artist  if  he  had  not 
happened  on  this  particular  improvement. 

M.  Marius-Michel  thinks  that  "  Le  Gascon " 
in  his  youth  must  have  been  familiar  with  the 
best  bindings  in  the  library  of  De  Thou.  In 
his  manhood  he  worked  for  Cardinal  IMazarin, 
and  it  is  worthy  of  note,  as  a  proof  of  the 
mastery  of  France  in  an  art  borrowed  from 
Italy,  that  when  Cardinal  Mazarin  (himself  an 
Italian)  was  in  Rome  in  1643,  he  sent  to 
Paris  for  workmen  to  bind  his  books.  Barely 
a  century  and  a  quarter  earlier,  Francis  I. 
and  Grolier  had  been  forced  to  import  Italian 
binders  into  France.  Perhaps  "  Le  Gascon  "  lent 
the  cardinal  some  of  his  own  apprentices. 
That  he  had  assistants  is  obvious.  No  one 
man    could    satisfy    the    demands    of    the    book- 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.         67 

lovers  of  his  time.  M.  Marius- Michel  thinks 
that  he  can  pick  out  certain  bindings  —  four 
volumes  of  Thomas  Aquinas,  for  example,  now 
in  the  Mazarin  Library  —  which  were  the  work 
of  these  apprentices,  as  he  believes  that  he 
can  discern  in  these  books  the  tools  of  the 
master,  but  not  his  skill  of  touch.  The  tools 
of  "  Le  Gascon  "  are  graceful  in  themselves,  but 
to  use  them  as  he  used  them  —  ne  faict  ce 
totir  qui  veut. 


III. 

PADELOUP    AND    DEROME. 

When  Louis  XIV.  succeeded  to  the  throne 
of  France,  and  began  the  long  reign  which 
opened  in  splendour  and  ended  in  sadness, 
probably  "  Le  Gascon "  was  still  binder  to  the 
king;  but  the  influence  of  the  greatest  of 
bibliopegic  artists  diminished  as  the  years  went 
on,  and  as  the  proud  king  sought  to  dominate 
every  art,  and  to  centre  all  things  in  himself 
as  the  sun  from  which  all  things  were  to  draw 
lio-ht.  The  reio:n  of  Louis  XIV.  was  the 
golden  age  of  French  literature ;  it  was  but 
the  over-gilt  age  of  French  binding.  The 
characteristic  of  the  art  toward  the  end  of  the 
long  rule  of  the  Grand  Monarch  was  a  brutal 
luxury  of  heavy  gilding.  The  king's  own 
books  were  bound  in  a  fashion  as  leaden  as 
the  architecture  of  Versailles,  and  as  expres- 
sive   of    the    royal    pride.       The     royal    arms, 

68 


Bookbindmgs  Old  and  New.         69 

exaggerated  out  of  all  proportion,  were 
stamped  on  the  centre  of  the  side  of  a  book, 
and  they  were  girt  about  by  a  broad  border, 
equally  emphatic  and  equally  dull.  These 
borders  were  often  imprinted  by  a  roulette^  a 
wheel  on  which  a  pattern  was  incised  in  the 
same  way  that  the  cylinder-rings  of  the  Egyp- 
tians were  engraved.  The  use 
of  the  roll,  repeating  the  same 
motive  indefinitely  as  it  is 
rolled  over  the  leather,  is  in- 
defensible ;  it  is  the  negation 
of  art;  it  destroys  the  free 
play  of  hand  which  is  the 
very  essence  of  handicraft. 

The  fashion  set  by  the  king  was  copied 
by  the  courtiers ;  and  on  most  of  the  books 
bound  under  Louis  XIV.  we  find  little  more 
than  a  border  around  the  margin,  and  a  coat- 
of-arms  in  the  centre.  Sometimes  a  wheel 
.was  prepared  broad  enough  to  imprint  a 
heavy  wreath  three  inches  in  width ;  sometimes 
there  would  be  two  or  three  borders  one 
within    the    other,    the     corners    forming    them- 

\ 


THREE   SEVENTEENTH- 
CENTURY  BORDERS. 


70         Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

selves  as  best  they  could,  haphazard  and 
happy-go-lucky.  Sometimes  huge  and  heavy 
corner-pieces  were  employed.  Sometimes  even 
the  whole  side  of  a  book  was  engraved  in  the 
same  heavy  style,  thus  reducing  the  binder's 
task  almost  to  the  level  of  a  day-laborer's. 
When  the  public  accepts  a  mechanical  and 
lifeless  substitute  for  artistic  and  individual 
handicraft,  the  result  is  a  deadening  of  the 
artistic  impulse,  and  a  decadence  into  the 
inertia  of  commonplace. 

Possibly  we  may  fairly  charge  this  decline 
to  the  inexorable  self-assertion  of  the  king; 
certainly  there  was  no  great  bookbinder  in 
France  while  Louis  XIV.  was  on  the  throne, 
and  no  great  book-lover.  His  reign  is  not 
distinguished  by  the  development  either  of  a 
Grolier  or  of  a  "  Le  Gascon."  Yet  it  was  while 
he  ruled  that,  under  the  influence  of  the 
traditions  bequeathed  by  "  Le  Gascon,"  the  tools 
known  to  book-lovers  as  the  fers  du  dix- 
septieme  siecle,  the  seventeenth-century  tools, 
were  brought  into  use ;  and  these  lovely  tools 
continue     in    use     to    this    day,    and    form     the 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.  7 1 

basis  of  the  stock   In   trade   of  the  best  binders 
of  the  nineteenth  century. 

And  it  was  in  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV., 
also,  by  sheer  reaction  against  the  leaden  show- 
iness  of  the  fashion  set  by  the  king,  that 
there  arose  the  simple  style  of  binding  called 
after  Jansen,  and  adopted  by  the  sect  of  Port- 
Royal.  The  Jansenists  bound  their  books 
soberly,  with  no  gilding  whatsoever  on  the 
sides,  relying  on  the  simple  beauty  of  the 
leather  in  which  their  volumes  were  clad, 
and  decorating  only  the  inside  border  —  the 
dentelle,  as  it  was  called,  from  its  resem- 
blance to  delicate  lacework.  These  under- 
decorated  books  were  better  bound,  in  a 
technical  sense,  than  those  of  an  earlier  day, 
however  much  more  beautiful  the  older  books 
were  to  the  eye.  The  books  bound  by  Boyet, 
for  example,  toward  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  were  more  solidly  prepared,  more 
carefully  sewn,  more  cautiously  covered,  than 
those  sent  forth  from  the  workshops  of  his 
immediate  predecessors.  The  Boyets,  one  of 
whom    in    1733    was    binder  to    the    king,    kept 


72  Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

alive  the  traditions  of  "  Le  Gascon,"  and  although 
they  were  not  encouraged  and  sustained  in 
their  more  artistic  endeavours,  as  their  indis- 
putable skill  deserved,  yet  they  are  the  bridge 
from  the  days  of  "  Le  Gascon  "  to  those  of  the 
Padeloups  and  the  Deromes. 

Shortly  after  the  death  of  Louis  XIV.  was 
produced  one  of  the  most  remarkable  bind- 
ings in  the  history  of  the  art  —  the  "  Daphnis 
et  Chloe"  of  1715,  which  is  adorned  with  the 
arms  of  the  regent,  and  which  was  recently  in 
the  Quentin-Bauchard  collection.  Its  chief 
characteristic  is  that  it  is  a  mosaic  —  that 
it  has  a  polychromatic  decoration  formed  by 
inlaid  leathers  of  various  colours.  The  coloured 
bindings  of  Grolier's  time  owed  their  varied 
tints  to  bands  of  paint,  and  although  there 
had  been  now  and  again  attempts  at  inlaying, 
there  had  been  no  such  bold  effort  as  this 
"  Daphnis  et  Chloe,"  attributed  generally  to 
Nicolas  Padeloup,  one  of  a  long  family  of 
binders,  existing  for  more  than  a  century  and 
a  half.  A  binding  in  mosaic  of  the  regency, 
or    of    Louis    XV.,     is    generally     credited     to 


"OFFICE  DE  LA  SEMAINE  SAINTE."  KUUNl)  liY  N.  I'AUEI.OUr.  (FROM 
"REMARKABLE  BINDINGS  IN  THE  BRITISH  MUSEUM,"  BY  HENRY  B. 
WHEATLEY.) 

73 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.  75 

Padeloup,  just  as  a  picture  with  a  white  horse 
is  often  ascribed  to  Wouwerman  without 
further  warrant.  The  decoration  of  the  "  Daph- 
nis  et  Chloe  "  was  obviously  inspired  by  the 
designs  of  the  contemporary  potters. 

And  here  occasion  serves  to  say  that  the 
interdependence  of  all  the  decorative  arts,  their 
varying  influence  one  upon  the  other,  can  be 
seen  in  the  history  of  bookbinding,  perhaps 
more  clearly  than  anywhere  else.  The  modern 
art  of  bookbinding  began  boldly  in  the 
fifteenth  century  in  Venice,  which  had  close 
relations  with  the  Orient,  and  to  which  many 
Greek  and  Arab  workmen  had  been  attracted, 
bringing  with  them  their  theories  and  habits 
of  decoration.        Geometric    desio-ns    of    Arabic 

O 

origin  are  abundant  on  all  the  objects  made 
by  Venetian  handicraftsmen  at  this  time,  es- 
pecially on  the  fragile  glassware  for  which  the 
city  of  islands  is  still  famous ;  and  M.  Marius- 
Michel  reproduced  a  decorative  band  taken 
from  the  tiles  which  adorned  the  interior  of 
a  mosque  in  Constantinople,  and  applied  also 
the    Venetian    embroideries,    then    given    as    a 


76  Bookbiiidhigs  Old  and  New. 

model  in  a  volume  of  Andrea  Guadagnino, 
promptly  copied  by  the  Italian  bookbinders, 
and  soon  borrowed  by  their  French  brethren. 
At  first,  very  naturally,  the  decoration  of  the 
outside  of  books  was  influenced  by  the  deco- 
ration of  their  insides,  and  we  find  bindings 
the  design  of  which  was  obviously  suggested 
by  the  rich  and  lavish  embellishment  of 
mediaeval  manuscripts,  and  others  adorned  with 
patterns  modified  but  slightly  from  the  elabo- 
rate typographic  ornaments  of  the  early  prin- 
ters. The  Aldi  were  binders  as  well  as 
printers,  and  the  same  devices  decorated  their 
noble  folios  both  within  and  without.  Geof- 
frey Tory,  the  author  of  "  Champ  Fleury," 
who  reformed  the  art  of  type-founding  and 
brought  about  the  abandonment  of  black- 
letter,  was  a  printer  who  was  also  a  binder. 
He  is  supposed  to  have  w^orked  for  his  con- 
temporary, Grolier.  Mr.  Story  makes  Raphael 
declare  : 

It  seems  to  me 
All  arts  are  one  —  all  branches  on  one  tree, 
All  fingers,  as  it  were,  upon  one  hand. 


"  ARIOSTO,  ORLANDO  FURIOSO."  VENICE,  1584.  BINDING  OF  DEROME  THE 
YOUNGER.  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  (BY  PERMISSION  OF  DAMASCENE 
MORGAND.) 

77 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.  79 

The  solidarity  of  the  decorative  arts,  at 
least,  is  indisputable.  Even  the  casual  ob- 
server cannot  but  note  the  hints  of  design 
borrowed  and  lent,  and  paid  back  with 
interest,  and  borrowed  again.  Under  Louis 
XIII.,  for  example,  when  lace-making  flour- 
ished, the  bookbinders  took  over  not  a  few 
of  the  lace-makers'  designs,  modifying  them  to 
suit  the  conditions  of  the  bibliopegic  art. 
Perhaps  it  is  not  fanciful  to  see  something 
of  the  formal  grace  of  the  stately  gardens  of 
Le  Notre  reflected  in  the  covers  of  the  sump- 
tuous tomes  of  Louis  XIV.,  influenced  for  the 
worse,  as  these  were,  by  the  heavy  hand  of 
Lebrun. 

As  we  turn  the  pages  of  M.  Marius- Michel's 
instructive  and  interesting  essay,  we  note  that 
"  Le  Gascon  "  used  tools  one  design  of  which  w* 
suggested  by  contemporary  embroideries ;  that 
Padeloup,  with  a  duller  sense  of  fitness,  found 
models  in  ecclesiastical  stained-glass ;  and  that 
Derome  was  influenced  by  the  remarkably 
varied  and  skilful  work  of  the  master  iron- 
workers of  the  day. 


8o         Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

The  close  interaction  of  the  decorative  arts 
is  made  obvious  again  when  we  find  experts 
Hke  M.  Marius-Michel  seeking  for  the  source 
of  certain  of  the  florid  designs  attributed  to 
Padeloup  in  the  painted  pottery  of  the  re- 
gency, and  in  the  symmetrically  disposed 
parterres  of  the  great  gardens  of  Louis  XIV. 
and  Louis  XV.  Perhaps  the  mosaics  of  Pade- 
loup (or  at  any  rate  the  turning  of  his  atten- 
tion to  mosaic)  are  due  to  the  example  of 
Boule,  who  died  only  in  1732,  and  who  carried 
to  the  highest  perfection  the  art  of  incrusting 
in  wood  designs  of  gold  and  of  brass,  of  shell 
and  of  ivory. 

The  main  defect  of  Padeloup  was  an  in- 
sufficient sense  of  form.  Some  of  these  floral 
designs  in  mosiac  are  as  unrelated  to  the 
shape  of  the  book  they  decorate  as  though 
they  had  been  cut  out  of  an  embroidered  silk 
or  a  printed  calico.  Some  of  them  have  a 
monotonous  repetition  of  the  same  framework, 
as  though  they  were  torn  from  a  roll  of  wall- 
paper. Form  and  symmetry,  composition  and 
balance  —  these  are  essentials  of  decorative  art. 


FRENCH,    i8TH    CENTURY.      liY    DEROME. 

8i 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.  '^2) 

Most  of  Padeloup's  designs  are  fragmentary ; 
they  lack  unity  of  motive  ;  they  have  no  centre 
to  which  the  rest  of  the  decoration  is  dtdy  sub- 
ordinate. Some  of  them,  less  pretentious  than 
others,  have  a  quality  of  their  own.  Beyond  all 
question  they  are  characteristic  of  their  period. 
In  the  main  they  are  heavy,  and  they  lack  skill, 
style,  grace.  Style  they  lack  most  plentifully, 
for  Padeloup  was  as  eclectic  as  a  quack-doctor. 
He  would  mingle  in  the  cover  of  any  one 
unfortunate  book  tools  and  methods  borrowed 
from  the  whole  history  of  the  art. 

I  confess  to  having  fallen  into  a  popular 
terror  here,  in  speaking  of  Padeloup  as  though  he 
were  a  single  entity,  despite  the  fact  that  there 
were,  first  and  last,  twelve  of  the  Padeloups. 
And  of  the  Derome  dynasty,  which  for  a  while 
was  contemporaneous,  there  were  no  less  than 
fourteen  who  were  more  or  less  known  as 
binders.  Perhaps  the  greatest  of  these  was 
Nicolas  Denis  Derome,  who  was  received  master 
in  1 76 1,  and  who  is  generally  known  as  the 
Younger  Derome.  The  Younger  Derome  was 
a  rapid  binder,  a  merit  most  rare  in  those  who 


84         Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

practise  this  craft ;  and  he  was  an  honest  work- 
man, loyally  following  the  mandates  of  his  cus- 
tomers. His  bindings  have  solidity  and  sub- 
stance. But  he  was  too  fond  of  the  knife,  and, 
like  a  cruel  surgeon,  too  careless  in  its  use.  He 
cut  to  the  c|uick,  and  many  a  beautiful  book  has 
died  under  his  treatment.  Margins  and  edges 
were  shorn  away  with  merciless  persistence ;  no 
tall  copies  ever  left  his  shop.  Dibdin  cries  out 
against  Derome  again  and  again,  and  we  cannot 
but  feel  that  the  cutting-iron  of  the  binder  had 
pierced  the  soul  of  that  travelling  book-lover. 
The  Englishman  declares  that  a  folio  of  "  Pris- 
cianus,"  printed  by  John  of  Spires  in  1470,  had 
lost  a  head  and  shoulders,  and  that  a  good  half 
of  the  miniatures  are  cut  into  at  the  top.  This 
is  a  crime  for  which  the  guillotine  itself  is  the 
only  fit  punishment. 

As  it  is  the  custom  to  attribute  to  Padeloup 
all  the  mosaics  of  the  period,  so  to  Derome  are 
credited  all  the  bindings  whereon  we  see  the 
fer  a  V oiscau,  a  gracefully  cut  tool  wherein  a 
tiny  bird  with  outstretched  wings  gives  life  and 
vivacity    to    the    decoration    of    the    cover.     In 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.  85 

Derome's  hands  this  decoration  consisted  gen- 
erally of  a  dentelle,  a  lacework  border  obvi- 
ously modelled  on  the  marvellously  easy  and 
varied  wrought-iron  of  the  French  smiths  of 
the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Nothing 
could  be  at  once  lighter  and  firmer,  and  of  its 
kind  more  charming,  than  the  best  of  the  open- 
work borders  of  Derome,  solidly  |^ 
tooled  on  broad  morocco.  And  ^wC^L^L^ 
the  motives,  borrowed  from  the  ^  ^'^^°''^  ^°'^^^^- 
artist-artisans  who  were  forging  the  gates  and 
makino-  the  locks  of  the  French  connoisseurs 
of  that  century,  are  capable  of  infinite  variation. 
Probably  there  are  no  two  bindings  of  Derome's 
exactly  alike. 


A    UEKUME    UOliDEK. 


86 


Boo/cbindings  Old  and  New. 


I   confess   that    I   have   here    praised    Derome 
more    warmly    than    do    the    French    critics    at 
whose  feet  I  sit,  and  whose  learned  taste  I  envy, 
Derome's  work  seems  to  me  to  be 
preferable    at    all    points    to    Pade- 
loup's ;   easier,  more   graceful,  more 
appropriate  —  in  a  word,  more  dec- 
orative.    After    Padelonp    and    De- 
rome   the    eighteenth    century    had 
no    binder    in    France    over   whose 
work  we  need  dwell  now.     The  art 
was   getting    clumsy-  and    sluggish. 
Strangely    enough,    the    vignettists, 
even  at  the  height  of   their  vogue, 
did  not  inspire  those  who  decorated 
the  outsides  of  the  volumes,  the  in- 
sides  of  which  they  had  illustrated 
with  such  dainty  and  delicious  fan- 
,iKMm       tasy.     Risen  was  a  friend  of  a  binder 
t^iy*^   named    Dubuisson,  but    the   friend- 
'''™TooLr'''  ship  had  no  appreciable  effect  upon 
Dubuisson's  handiwork.     Gravelot  designed  the 
tools  to  be  used  on  the  sides  and  back  of  the 
volumes  of  his  "  Contes  "  of  La  Fontaine  (1762), 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.  87 

of  his  Racine  (1768),  and  of  his  Corneille 
(1771);  but  his  hand  seems  to  have  lost  some- 
what of  its  cunning  when  it  undertook  a  task 
for  which  it  had  no  training.  At  least  so  M. 
Marius-Michel  thinks,  and  his  is  a  trained 
taste  which  a  layman  may  wisely  follow.  Co- 
chin did  not  suggest  a  chaste  disorder  to  those 
who  bound  the  books  he  had  adorned  with 
his  delicate  plates ;  nor  did  Moreau  —  and  if 
a  French  decorative  artist  of  the  last  century 
could  not  be  stimulated  by  Moreau,  then  the 
effort  was  hopeless. 


<> 


EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY   TOOLS. 


SS         Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

It  is  not  a  treatise  on  bookbinding  that  I  have 
here  attempted,  or  a  history  of  the  art,  or  even 
a  set  and  formal  essay.  All  I  have  sought  to 
do  is  to  jot  down  a  few  stray  notes  —  to  gossip 
about  those  who  have  helped  to  make  the  Book 
Beautiful.  What  I  have  tried  to  show  in  my 
rambling  paragraphs,  and  in  the  illustrations 
chosen  to  accompany  them,  is  the  sequence  of 
styles,  and  the  way  one  style  was  evolved  from 
another,  and  their  relations  one  to  the  other. 
At  first  we  find  almost  simultaneously  the 
Aldine  and  the  Mai'oli,  the  Grolier  and  the 
Henry  II.,  styles.  Then  followed  the  powder 
(which  probably  suggested  the  wreaths),  the  fan- 
fares of  the  Eves,  and  the  brilliant  fantasies 
of  "  Le  Gascon."  Finally  came  Padeloup  with 
his  polychromatic  mosaics  (some  of  them  deriv- 
ing their  monotonous  framework  from  the 
wreaths  and  the  powder),  and  Derome  with  his 
vigorous  borders.  And  as  I  wandered  down  the 
history  of  bookbinding,  I  have  tried  to  show 
that  the  key  to  any  understanding  of  the  suc- 
ceeding styles  is  to  be  found  in  a  study  of  the 
tools  of  each  epoch. 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.  89 

That  the  names  of  the  gifted  bookbinders  and 
devoted  book-lovers  which  came  to  the  end  of 
my  pen  in  the  course  of  my  stroll  down  the  vista 
of  bibliopegy  were  nearly  all  French  is  not  wil- 
ful on  my  part,  but  inevitable.  The  art  of  book- 
binding was  cradled  in  France,  even  if  it  was 
born  elsewhere,  and  in  France  it  grew  to  matu- 
rity. Italy  shared  the  struggle  with  France  in 
the  beginning,  but  soon  fell  behind  exhausted. 
Germany  invented  the  book-plate  to  paste  inside 
a  volume,  in  default  of  the  skill  so  to  adorn  the 
volume  externally  that  no  man  should  doubt 
its  ownership.  England  has  had  but  one  binder 
—  Roger  Payne  —  that  even  the  insular  enthu- 
siasm of  his  compatriots  would  dare  to  set  beside 
the  galaxy  of  bibliopegic  stars  of  France. 

The  supremacy  of  the  French  in  the  history  of 
this  art  is  shown  in  the  catalogues  of  every  great 
book-sale  and  of  every  great  library ;  the  gems 
of  the  collection  are  sure  to  be  the  work  of  one 
or  another  of  the  Frenchmen  to  whose  unrivalled 
attainments  I  have  once  more  called  attention 
in  these  pages.  It  is  revealed  yet  again  by  a 
comparison  of  the  illustrations  in  the  many  his- 


90         Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

torical  accounts  of  the  art,  French  and  German, 
British  and  American ;  nearly  nine-tenths  of 
the  bindings  chosen  for  reproduction  are  French. 
And,  after  enjoying  these,  we  are  often  led  to 
wonder  why  a  misplaced  patriotism  was  blind 
enough  to  expose  the  other  tenth  to  a  damaging 
comparison.  These  remarks,  of  course,  apply 
only  to  the  binders  whose  work  was  done  before 
the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Of 
late  years  the  superiority  of  French  binders  has 
been  undisputable,  but  it  has  not  been  over- 
whelming. There  are  at  present  in  Great 
Britain  and  in  the  United  States  binders  whom 
no  one  has  a  right  to  pass  over  in  silence,  and 
about  whom  I  shall  gossip  again  in  this  vol- 
ume ;  but  in  the  past  it  was  France  first  and 
the  rest  nowhere. 


ENGLISH,   iSTH   CENTURY.      ROGER    PAYNE. 
91 


BOOKBINDINGS     OF     THE 
PRESENT. 


BOOKBINDINGS     OF     THE 
PRESENT. 


I. 

THE    TECHNIC    OF    THE    CRAFT.    . 

As  there  is  unfortunately  no  word  in  the 
EngHsh  language  to  describe  those  familiar,  yet 
dignified,  poems  which  in  France  are  known  as 
vers  dc  societe,  and  which  are  far  above  ordinary 
"  society  verse,"  and  as  there  is  no  single  term 
to  denote  the  short-story,  the  form  of  fiction 
in  which  we  Americans  have  been  most  abun- 
dant and  successful,  so  also  is  there  need  in 
English  of  a  recognized  phrase  for  the  defining 
each  of  the  two  halves  of  bibliopegic  art.  Book- 
binding consists  of  two  wholly  distinct  opera- 
tions, known  to  the  expert  as  "forwarding"  and 
"  finishing."  Forwarding  is  the  proper  prepara- 
tion of  a  book  for  its  cover  and  the  putting  on 

95 


96         Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

of  that  cover ;  finishing  is  the  decoration  of  the 
sides  and  back  of  the  book  after  it  has  been 
covered.  Forwarding,  therefore,  is  the  task  of 
an  artisan,  while  finishing  must  be  the  work  of 
an  artist. 

Mr.  WilHam  Matthews,  than  whom  there  is 
no  one  more  competent  to  express  an  opinion, 
has  declared  that  "  a  book,  when  neatly  and 
cleanly  covered,  is  in  a  very  satisfactory  condi- 
tion without  any  finishing  or  decorating."  Many 
book-lovers  agree  wdth  the  foremost  of  Ameri- 
can bookbinders,  and  order  their  precious  vol- 
umes to  be  soberly  clad  in  plain  morocco.  The 
Jansenist  binding,  as  it  is  called  after  the  leader 
of  the  recluses  of  Port-Royal,  calls  for  the  maxi- 
mum of  care  in  the  forwarding,  and  the  mini- 
mum of  gilding  or  other  decoration  '  of  the 
finisher. 

Mr.  Matthews  went  even  further,  —  I  quote 
from  his  lecture  on  "  Bookbinding  Practically 
Considered,"  delivered  before  the  Grolier  Club 
of  New  York  in  1885,  and  by  the  club  printed 
in  1889,  —  and  having  described  the  succes- 
sive  steps    by   which    a   book    is   prepared,   for- 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.  97 

warded,  and  covered  with  leather,  said :  "  I 
now  declare  the  book  in  this  condition  is  bound, 
and  he  w4io  has  skilfully  mastered  these  various 
processes  through  which  a  volume  has  passed 
deserves  the  name  of  binder;  he  who  is  called 
upon  to  decorate  it,  finisher.  At  present  the 
custom  is  the  reverse :  the  finisher  or  decorator 
is  credited  with  being  the  binder,  whereas  he 
has  done  none  of  the  binding." 

Now,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  protest 
of  this  accomplished  craftsman  is  well  founded. 
But  the  error  is  so  old  that  there  is  no  hope  of 
uprooting  it  at  this  late  day.  When  we  speak 
of  a  book  as  beautifully  bound,  we  are  praising 
the  work  of  the  man  who  designed  and  exe- 
cuted the  decoration  of  the  cover,  not  the  labour 
of  the  man  who  clothed  the  book  with  leather, 
and  who  bbviously  enough  was  really  its  binder. 
Of  course,  in  a  great  many  instances  forwarder 
and  finisher  are  one  and  the  same  person.  Per- 
haps this  was  the  case  with  the  books  which  are 
catalogued  as  "  bound  by  Le  Gascon,"  although 
it  is  as  a  finisher  that  "Le  Gascon  "  is  unrivalled, 
and    certainly    it    is    the    case    with    the    books 


98  Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

bound  by  Mr.  Cobden-Sanderson,  who  himself 
attends  to  every  detail  of  preparing  and  for- 
warding, aided  only  by  his  wife.  The  French 
term  for  "finisher"  is  "gilder,"  and,  in  his 
account  of  French  bookbinding,  M.  Marius- 
Michel,  a  dorciw  himself,  is  very  careful  to  give 
credit  for  a  delicate  decoration  to  the  special 
artist  who  designed  and  gilded  it.  It  is  greatly 
to  be  regretted  that  there  is  in  popular  use  only 
one  word  to  designate  the  two  distinct  opera- 
tions. 

Although  these  notes  on  the  art  of  book- 
binding as  it  is  practised  to-day  have  to  do 
with  the  work  of  the  finisher  —  the  artist  who 
adorns  the  exterior  of  a  volume,  and  not  with 
the  more  humble,  but  not  less  important,  labour 
of  the  forwarder  —  the  artisan  who  prepares  it 
for  decoration,  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  begin 
by  setting  forth  the  series  of  operations  a  book 
undergoes  at  the  hands  first  of  the  forwarder, 
and  then  of  the  finisher ;  and  in  this  explana- 
tion of  technical  processes  I  shall  follow  two 
masters  of  the  bibliopegic  art,  Mr.  William 
Matthews,  from   whose   lecture  before   the   Gro- 


"HISTORY,  THEORY,   AND   PRACTICE  OF   ILLUMINATING."       DIGKY    WYATT, 
LONDON,    1861. 

Bound  by  Zaehnsdorf.  Crimson  morocco,  wide  borders,  inlaid  with  varie- 
gated leathers  in  a  scroll  pattern,  bold  in  design  ;  lined  with  dark  green  morocco 
with  red  border,  the  whole  ornamented  with  vines  and  flowers.  Owned  by  Mr. 
Samuel  P.  Avery. 

99 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        loi 

lier  Club  I  have  already  quoted,  and  Mr.  Joseph 
W.  Zaehnsdorf,  whose  handbook  of  "  The  Art 
of  Bookbinding  "  came  forth  in  a  second  edition 
in  1S90.  Every  book-lover  should  understand 
the  principles  of  the  art  of  the  bookbinder,  and 
the  practices  of  the  craft ;  appreciation  is  best 
founded  on  knowledge. 

Often  a  volume  comes  into  the  hands  of  the 
binder  already  bound.  The  books  of  American 
publishers  are  issued  in  substantial  cloth  covers 
intended  to  be  permament.  The  bindings  of 
British  publishers  are  frequently  more  tempo- 
rary, and  the  book  is  loosely  cased  in  the  cloth 
cover,  the  owner  being  expected  to  rebind  in 
leather  an}^  volume  which  he  deems  worthy  of 
preservation.  The  books  of  French  publishers 
are  issued  in  paper  covers,  merely  stitched,  and 
so  are  most  of  those  of  the-  German  publishers ; 
as  Lord  Houghton  recorded  on  one  of  his  early 
visits,  "  Jn  Germany  all  the  books  are  in  sheets 
and  all  the  beds  without." 

The  first  thing  the  binder  has  to  do  if  the 
book  is  already  bound  is  to  remove  the  cloth 
cover,    and    then    very    carefully    to    collate    the 


I02        Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

\'olume  page  by  page,  to  see  if  title,  preface, 
table  of  contents,  list  of  illustrations,  notes, 
index,  maps,  plates,  are  each  and  all  per- 
fect and  in  place.  If  need  be,  the  sheets  are 
refolded  so  as  to  make  the  pages  true ;  then 
the}^  are  beaten  by  hand,  or  rolled  in  a  press, 
which  is  a  more  hurried  method,  and  by  far 
less  workmanlike ;  the  beating  being  to  com- 
pact the  pages,  and  to  give  the  book  solidity 
and  strength.  After  the  beating,  the  loose  maps 
and  illustrations,  mounted  on  linen  guards,  are 
inserted  in  their  proper  places.  Then  the 
sheets  are  sewn  to  the  bands,  and  generally 
there  should  be  no  saw-cuts  in  the  back  of  the 
book,  and  the  sewing  should  not  be  "  sunk- 
band,"  as  it  is  called,  but  "  raised-band,"  and  as 
flexible  as  it  is  firm. 

The  volume  is  now  prepared  for  the  for- 
warder, who  carries  on  the  work  to  the  point 
where  it  is  ready  for  the  finisher.  The  for- 
warder attaches  the  end-papers ;  he  glues  the 
back  of  the  book,  and  rounds  it ;  he  squares  the 
niill  boards  which  are  to  serve  as  the  sides  of 
the  book,  and   he  laces  them  in   by  means  of   the 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        103 

bands  to  which  the  sheets  have  been  sewn.  The 
forwarder  needs  a  steady  hand,  and,  above  all 
things,  a  true  eye  — "  the  important  principle 
to  be  observed  in  forwarding  is  triteness.  The 
form  and  shape  of  the  book  depend  on  the 
forwarder"  (Matthews,  p.   35). 

The  volume  thus  far  advanced  is  clamped  in 
a  press ;  and  it  is  allowed  to  repose  for  a  while 
and  to  gain  strength.  Then  the  edges  are  cut, 
or  at  least  the  top  edge  is  cut,  the  other  margins 
being  better  left  intact,  to  delight  the  owner's 
eye ;  as  it  is  only  on  top  that  a  volume  stand- 
ing on  a  shelf  can  accumulate  dust,  it  is  only 
the  top  edge  that  needs  to  be  smoothed  so 
that  the  dust  can  be  blown  off  or  wiped  away 
at  will.  The  cut  edges,  be  it  the  top  only,  or 
top,  bottom,  and  fore  edge,  are  then  marbled  or 
gilded ;  sometimes  they  are  gilded  over  mar- 
bling, to  the  added  richness  of  the  work.  The 
back  is  then  lined,  and,  when  the  binder  is  con- 
scientious, a  narrow  leather  joint  is  affixed,  to 
act  as  a  hinge  for  the  covers.  The  headband 
is  woven  in.  After  that  the  leather  —  morocco, 
calf,    or    what    not  —  is    stretched    tightly    and 


1 04        Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

snugly  over  the  book,  and  glued  fast.  When 
the  end-papers  are  pasted  to  the  covers,  the  task 
of  the  forwarder  is  done,  and  the  book  is  ready 
for  the  finisher  who  is  to  decorate  it. 

What  the  finisher  has  to  do  is  to  invent  a 
design  for  the  sides  and  back  of  the  volume 
which  is  appropriate  to  the  book,  to  its  subject, 
to  its  owner,  to  its  size,  and  to  the  kind  of 
leather  with  which  it  is  covered.  This  design 
must  be  one  which  can  be  worked  out  with  the 
implements  at  his  command.  Every  artist  must 
consider  the  physical  limitations  of  the  art  he 
practises,  and  the  chief  limitation  of  the  artist 
who  decorates  a  book  is  that  the  desio-n  he 
invents  for  it  must  be  capable  of  accomplishment 
by  the  fillets,  which  make  a  straight  line,  by  the 
gouges,  which  make  curved  lines,  and  by  the 
various  other  tools,  as  they  are  termed.  In 
the  proper  cutting  and  selection  of  tools  is  the 
secret  of  book-decoration.  Mr.  Matthews  notes 
the  superiority  of  the  French  tool-cutters  over 
the  American  and  British ;  and  Mr.  Cobden- 
Sanderson  once  told  me  of  the  difficulty  he  has 
had  in  getting  cut  such  tools  as  he  needed. 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        1 05 

Having  determined  on  the  scheme  of  his 
design,  the  finisher  selects  the  tools  with  which 
to  execute  it.  Mr.  Cobden-Sanderson  even 
makes  a  habit  of  using  the  actual  tools  in  the 
sketching  out  of  his  pattern,  blackening  them 
in    the   flame   of  a  candle   so   that    they  can    be 


A  BINDING   BY   COBDEN-SANDERSON. 


transferred  to  paper.  Often  professional  binders 
will  have  tools  especially  prepared  for  a  special 
work.  The  more  accomplished  the  workman, 
the  smaller  and  more  elementary  his  tools  will 
be;   he  will  decline  to  use  a  spray  of  leaves  or 


io6       BookbindiJio-s  Old  and  New 


i> 


a  festoon  cut  all  in  a  single  piece,  preferring 
to  impress  every  leaf  separately.  M.  Marius- 
Michel  is  loud  in  the  praises  of  a  finisher  who 
worked  for  Henry  II.,  and  who  accomplished 
intricate  and  lovely  decorations  with  no  other 
implement  than  a  fillet  for  the  straight  lines, 
and  a  set  of  o'ouges  for  the  curves  and  circles ; 
and  these  were  all  that  Gilson  used  in  the  finish- 
ing of  the  most  elaborate  Hispano-Moresque 
cover  and  lining  of  the  copy  of  Owen  Jones's 
"  Alhambra,"  which  Mr.  Matthews  bound  for 
the  New  York  exhibition  of  1853,  and  which 
took  six  months  to  complete,  and  cost  $500. 

The  process  of  working  a  design  in  the  best 
manner  is  very  tedious,  so  Mr.  Matthews  tes- 
tifies, "  more  so  than  even  connoisseurs  imag- 
ine. First  the  design  is  made  on  paper,  then 
impressed  with  the  tools  through  the  paper  on 
to  the  leather ;  then  the  paper  is  removed,  and 
the  design  again  gone  over  with  the  tools  to 
make  the  impression  sharp  and  clear"  —  the 
leather  being  slightly  moistened  and  the  tools 
being  moderately  heated.  "  Then,  after  wash- 
ing,   sizing,    and    laying   on    the    gold    leaf,    the 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        107 

design  is  gone  over  for  the  fourth  time  before 
one  side  of  the  cover  is  completed.  This,  hav- 
ing to  be  repeated  on  the  other  side  of  the 
volume,  and  the  back  also  tooled,  will  afford 
some  idea  of  the  labour  in  executing  the  finest 
hand-tooling." 

Often  the  inside  of  the  covers  is  also  lined 
with  leather,  and  as  carefully  ornamented.  Often 
certain  figures  in  the  pattern  are  excised,  and 
the  spaces  filled  with  leathers  of  a  different 
colour;  and  this  polychromatic  decoration  is 
known  as  inlaying,  or  illuminating.  The  fin- 
isher needs  to  have  delicacy  of  taste  and 
nicety  of  touch ;  he  must  have  a  fancy  to 
invent  beautiful  desio^ns,  and  a  firm  hand  to 
execute  them ;  and  he  must  not  expect  wide 
fame,  much  real  appreciation,  or  high  pay.  It 
is  no  wonder,  therefore,  that  accomplished 
finishers  are  very  few.  Mr.  Quaritch,  in  his 
catalogue  of  bookbindings,  speaks  of  the  late 
Francis  Bedford  as  the  best  binder  who  ever 
lived.  The  best  forwarder,  he  may  have  been, 
but  he  was  not  a  finisher  himself,  and  he  never 
had    a   first-class    finisher    in    his    employ.     Mr. 


io8       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

Matthews  asserted  that  tliere  were  not  more 
than  six  finishers  in  New  York  "who  can  even 
work  any  intricate  pattern  with  fair  abiHty.  In 
London  I  question  if  the  number  is  greater 
in  proportion  to  the  population ;  and  in  Paris, 
where  the  art  flourishes  most,  where  the  patron- 
age is  encourao^ino",  and  the  workmen  have 
superior  advantages,  I  doubt  if  the  number 
of  finishers  quaHfied  to  work  intricate  designs 
in  first-ckiss  manner  exceeds  twenty." 

Any  one  who  was  fortunate  enougli  to  see 
the  Exhibition  of  Recent  Bookbindings,  1860- 
18S0,  at  the  GroHer  Ckib  in  the  last  days  of 
1890,  or  who  will  take  the  trouble  to  turn  the 
pages  of  M.  Octave  Uzanne's  "  La  Reliure 
Moderne,"  must  confess  that  there  are  very  few 
finishers  of  our  time  who  have  originality  of 
invention,  freshness  of  composition,  or  individu- 
ality of  taste.  But  a  comparison  of  the  best 
bound  books  of  this  century  with  those  of  the 
seventeenth  and  sixteenth  centuries — which  are 
the  golden  ages  of  bibliopegy,  for  "  Le  Gascon  " 
lived  in  one,  and  Grolier  in  the  other  —  will 
show  that  the  work  of  our    time    is    technically 


tJ-77 


j  %,!  ^:/  ^ )  -^  )  ^^  d  'it  J   .^  ) 


:>jl  -^y^/^/;  <f7';-^:7    .^;/'    ^'7   .•>- 


7     ^7    ^f    #rJ''    ^'J^    -^f     '«?:/■    J  7 

:4  4  S  4   4  4  4^'  ^  ■ 


"  AUCASSIN  AND   NICOLETE."      LONDON,  1886. 

Bound  by  Ruban.     Garnet  morocco.     Owned  by  Mr.  George  B,  De  Forest. 

109 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        1 1 1 

far  better  than  any  which  has  come  clown  to 
us  from  our  ancestors.  Tliere  is  better  forward- 
ins:  ^ncl  better  finishino:.  In  the  sold-toohno- 
especially  the  modern  workman  is  incomparably 
neater,  cleaner,  more  exact,  more  conscientious, 
than  his  predecessor :  the  tooling  of  the  men 
who  bound  for  Grolier  is  to  our  eye  inexcusably 
careless ;  clumsy  irregularities  mar  the  symme- 
try of  the  most  ■  beautifully  designed  arabesques, 
ill-balanced  lines  overrun  their  limits,  and  ends 
are  left  hanging  out  with  reckless  slovenliness. 
The  superiority  of  the  elder  binders  in  their 
incomparable  fertility  of  conception  must  not 
blind  us  to  the  fact  that  in  care,  in  thorough- 
ness, and  in  other  workman-like  qualities,  they 
bear  a  most  obvious  inferiority  to  binders  of 
later  years  who  have  not  a  tithe  of  their  ability. 
Probably  the  same  state  of  affairs  exists  in 
other  arts.  I  remember  that  in  1867,  when  I 
was  but  a  boy,  I  had  a  chat  in  Naples  with 
Signor  Castellani,  the  antiquary  and  goldsmith 
about  the  fluctuations  of  the  art  of  the  silver- 
smith. He  told  me  that  he  had  more  than  one 
workman  then  in  his  shop  of  greater  skill  than 


1 1 2       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

Benvenuto  Cellini,  of  a  more  certain  handicraft. 
These  workmen  could  reproduce  any  of  Cellini's 
legacies  to  posterity,  little  masterpieces  of  gold- 
smithery  and  enamelling,  and  they  would  make 
a  better  job  of  it  than  the  great  Italian ;  for 
the  modern  imitations  would  show  a  finer  tech- 
nical skill  than  Cellini's,  and  reveal  fewer  defects 
and  blunders  and  accidents  than  the  marvellous 
originals.  But  copy  as  accurately  as  they  might, 
the  modern  workmen  were  wholly  incapable  of 
originating  anything.  In  Cellini  there  was  a 
union  of  the  head  and  the  hand,  of  the  artist 
and  of  the  artisan,  while  in  Castellani's  men 
the  hand  had  gained  skill,  but  the  head  had 
lost  its  force.  The  handicraft  had  improved, 
and  the  art  had  declined.  There  were  now 
very  expert  artisans,  but  there  was  no  indis- 
putably gifted  artist. 

In  solidity  of  workmanship  and  in  dexterity 
of  handicraft,  the  art  of  the  binder  has  advanced 
in  this  centurv ;  but  not  in  desisfn.  The  finish- 
ers  of  our  time  can  repeat  all  the  great  artists 
of  the  past,  but  they  cannot  rival  them  in  in- 
vention, in  fantasv,  in  freshness,   and   in  charm. 


"3 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        1 1 5 

To  say  this  is  not  to  assert  that  the  art  is  in 
its  decadence,  or  even  that  it  is  in  any  way  going 
backward  ;  but  that  it  is  not  going  forward  one 
mio^ht  venture  to  hint.  The  nineteenth  cen- 
tury  is  now  in  its  last  decade,  and  it  has  not 
yet  developed  a  style  of  its  own  in  bookbinding 
—  if  it  has  in  any  other  of  the  decorative  arts. 
The  men  who  bound  for  Grolier  and  Henry  II. 
lived  in  the  sixteenth  century ;  the  Eves  and 
"  Le  Gascon  "  lived  in  the  seventeenth ;  and  even 
in  the  eighteenth  century  there  was  Derome, 
with  his  lacework  borders  borrowed  from,  or  at 
least  inspired  by,  the  graceful  wrought-iron  work 
of  the  contemporary  French  smiths.  But  the 
most  beautiful  bindings  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury are  in  the  main  imitations  of  those  of  the 
centuries  preceding.  Often  the  style  is  a  doubt- 
ful and  tasteless  eclectic,  perhaps  not  unfairly 
to  be  stigmatized  as  bastard  and  mongrel. 
There  is  hardly  to  be  detected  even  a  vague 
effort  after  a  style.  Sometimes  imitation  de- 
velops into  adaptation,  and  a  new  style  is 
evolved  slowly  out  of  combinations  and  modifi- 
cations; but  in  the  art  of  binding  we  have  not 


1 1 6       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

seen  many  signs  of  any  such  process  now  going 
on.  Almost  the  only  external  influence  which 
has  been  allowed  to  affect  the  accepted  formulas 
is  the  Japanese;  and  the  example  of  these  sur- 
passingly adroit  decorative  artists  has  not  been 
sufficient  to  destroy  the  sterility  from  which 
the  art  of  bookbinding  is  suffering.  Its  effect, 
at  most,  has  been  to  increase  the  freedom  of 
drawing,  and  to  encourage  a  more  realistic 
treatment  of  natural   objects. 

The  art  of  bookbinding  has  always  been 
claimed  by  the  French  as  peculiarly  theirs,  and 
it  is  not  easy  to  deny  the  justice  of  the  demand. 
Perhaps  the  position  in  which  the  art  has  found 
itself  during  the  most  of  this  century  is  due  to 
the  French  Revolution,  in  the  course  of  which, 
and  of  the  long  wars  that  ensued,  the  demand 
for  fine  work  ceased  abruptly.  The  trained 
workmen  died  off,  the  shops  were  broken  up, 
and  the  tools  were  scattered  and  lost.  Even 
the  traditions  of  the  art  disappeared  —  and  in 
every  art  which  is  also  a  trade  the  traditions 
represent  the  acquired  force,  the  impetus. 
When    the    Empire    came    after    the    Consulate, 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        1 1 7 

and  Napoleon  wished  to  pose  as  the  patron  of 
the  arts,  bookbinding  was  dead  in  France.  "  I 
doubt  if  you  could  find  anything  more  ugly 
than  the  books  bound  for  Napoleon  I.,  for 
Louis  XVIII,,  for  Louis  Philippe,"  once  de- 
clared M.  Auguste  Laugel,  in  a  letter  to  the 
"  Nation." 

As  it  happened,  the  art  which  had  been 
highest  in  France,  and  had  then  sunk  lowest, 
had  kept  its  humble  level  in  England,  and  at 
the  end  of  the  last  century  had  even  had  its 
only  successful  effort  at  originality  there.  The 
greatest  name  in  the  history  of  bookbinding  in 
Great  Britain  is  that  of  Roger  Payne,  an  honest 
and  thorouoh  workman  of  some  taste,  and  with 
a  certain  elementary  appreciation  of  design. 
"  His  efforts  were  always  original,  never  copied," 
and  this  is  a  very  rare  compliment  to  pay  to  a 
British  bookbinder;  and  it  is  to  this  originality, 
as  Mr.  Matthews  suggests,  rather  than  to  any 
great  excellence  in  his  designs,  that  he  owes 
the  exaggerated  esteem  in  which  he  is  held  in 
England.  When  Matthew  Arnold  once  said  to 
Sainte-Beuve    that    he  did  not  think   Lamartine 


1 1 8        Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

very  important  as  a  poet,  the  French  critic 
replied,  "He  is  important  to  us";  and  so  it  is 
with  Roger  Payne — he  is  important  to  the 
British.  If  he  is  mentioned  at  all  in  French 
books,  his  name    is  usually  given  incorrectly. 

Lewis  was  the  leading  English  binder  early 
in  this  century,  in  Dr.  Dibdin's  day.  Perhaps 
it  was  owing  to  the  influence  of  Dibdin,  some 
of  whose  rhapsodical  writing  was  translated  into 
French,  that  the  Parisian  book-lovers  began  to 
send  their  precious  volumes  across  the  Channel 
to  be  bound  in  London.  Thus  the  tradition 
of  Roger  Payne,  the  most  original  binder  the 
British  had  ever  had,  helped  to  revive  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  French  binders,  who  soon  surpassed 
again  their  British  rivals,  just  as  it  was  a  fol- 
lower of  Bewick  who  revealed  to  the  French 
the  possibilities  of  the  art  of  wood-engraving, 
in  which  the  French  have  also  become  superior 
to  the   British. 


II. 


THE    BINDERS    OF   TO-DAY. 

Whether  the  vivifying  spark  was  borrowed 
from  Great  Britain,  or  whether  it  was  brought 
from  Germany  by  Traiitz,  the  French  binders 
soon  recovered  their  former  supremacy.  Trautz 
is  still  the  strongest  individuality  among  the 
French  bookbinders  of  this  century,  and  his 
influence  is  still  perceptible,  though  he  died  in 
1879.  He  is  the  foremost  binder  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  and  in  his  influence  we  can  per- 
haps detect  the  foundation  of  a  school,  or  at 
least  of  something  more  than  merely  individual, 
solitary,  unaided  struggle  toward  the  unknown. 
At  once  forwarder  and  finisher,  overseeing 
every  operation  of  his  craft,  Trautz  led  the 
reform  of  bookbindino^  in  France.  He  frowned 
upon  all  haste  and  on  all  labour-saving  devices. 
He  never  stinted  time  or  care  or  hard  work. 
He   did   his   best  always.     He  gave  to  the  vol- 

119 


120       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

umes  which  left  his  hands  greater  firmness, 
flexibility,  and  solidity  than  any  other  binder 
had  ever  before  attempted.  He  caused  a  host 
of  new  tools  to  be  cut,  modelled  on  those  of 
"  Le  Gascon  "  and  Derome  and  Padeloup.  He 
studied  the  works  of  these  masters  reverently 
and  unceasingly,  seeking  to  spy  out  the  secrets 
of  their  art.  He  followed  in  their  footsteps, 
but  although  he  modelled  himself  upon  them, 
he  never  copied,  trying  rather  to  imbue  himself 
with  their  spirit,  and  to  carry  forward  their 
methods  to  a  finer  perfection, 

"  I  do  not  think  that  Trautz  ever  made  the 
same  binding  twice ;  there  is  on  every  book 
coming  out  of  his  hands  something  personal, 
something  original,"  M.  Laugel  wrote  in  1S79. 
"  This  man,  who  could  make  any  amount  of 
money  by  merely  putting  his  name  on  books, 
is  so  conscientious  that  he  only  turns  out  every 
year  about  two  hundred  volumes ;  he  has  only 
three  workmen  or  workwomen ;  he  does  the 
drawing  of  ornaments  and  gilding  himself.  For 
those  who  have  not  seen  Trautz  or  Thibaron 
(the  pupil  of  Trautz)  at  work,  it  is  almost  impos- 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        1 2 1 

sible  to  imagine  how  much  pains  must  be  taken 
for  one  volume."  Nothing  that  Trautz  under- 
took cost  more  pains  than  his  mosaics ;  in  the 
two-score  years  from  1838  to  1878  he  attempted 
only  twenty-two  of  them,  and  of  these  four  are 
now  owned  by  New  York  collectors.  They 
show,  perhaps,  the  most  originality  of  any  of 
his  bindings,  and  they  reveal  his  characteristics 
most  abundantly.  They  have  the  pure  beauty 
of  design  which  we  look  for  in  every  work  of 
decorative  art,  wrought  with  the  utmost  deft- 
ness and  delicacy  of  handicraft. 

Of  the  supremacy  of  the  French  in  the  art 
of  bookbinding  since  Trautz  led  them  back  into 
the  true  path,  no  better  evidence  can  there  be 
than  the  index  of  binders  represented  prefixed 
to  the  catalogue  of  the  Grolier  Club  Exhibition 
of  Recent  Bookbindings.  New  York  is  perhaps 
the  most  cosmopolitan  of  all  the  great  cities  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  especially  in  all  matters 
pertaining  to  art;  and  the  taste  of  its  collectors 
is  eclectic  in  the  best  sense  of  that  much-abused 
term.  Of  the  fifty-one  binders  whose  handi- 
work  was   exhibited    at    the    Grolier,    thirty-six 


1 22        Bookbindmgs  Old  and  New. 

lived  in  Paris,  one  at  Lyons,  one  at  Brussels, 
six  in  London,  five  in  New  York,  one  in  Phila- 
delphia, and  one  in  Quebec.  The  artistic  supe- 
riority of  the  French  bindings  shown  at  the 
Grolier  was  almost  as  marked  as  the  numerical ; 
of  the  score  of  bindings  finest  in  conception 
and  in  execution,  three-fourths  at  least  were 
the  product  of  Parisian  workshops.  There 
were  not  a  few  also  which  had  come  from 
these  same  shops,  which  were  as  bad  as  the 
worst  which  had  been  turned  out  in  New  York 
or  London  —  misbegotten  horrors  of  leather, 
"whom  Satan  hath  bound,"  if  it  is  permissible 
to  borrow  a  scriptural  quotation  from  that 
learned  book-lover,  the  late  Henry  Stevens  of 
Vermont. 

But  the  very  best  of  M  M.  Cape,  Cuzin, 
Chambolle-Duru,  De  Samblancx,  Gruel  and 
Engelmann,  Joly,  Lortic,  Marius-Michel,  Nied- 
ree,  Quinet,  and  Ruban,  attains  a  very  high 
standard  of  excellence.  Now  and  again,  no 
doubt,  we  find  a  French  binder  who  has  sac- 
rificed forwarding  to  finishing,  having  made 
his    book    so    solid    and     so     stiff    that    it    can 


A  BINDING   BY    FRANCISQUE  CUZIN. 
123 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        1 25 

scarcely  be  opened,  and  so  compacted  that  if  it 
is  opened  unwarily  the  back  is  broken  beyond 
repair.  Books  I  have  seen  fresh  from  the  hands 
of  a  Parisian  binder  as  brilliant  as  a  jewel- 
casket,  and  as  hard  to  open  as  a  safe-deposit  vault 
when  you  have  forgotten  the  combination. 

The  relatively  high  position  held  by  the 
binders  of  Great  Britain  was  momentary  only, 
and  at  best  it  was  due  to  the  temporary  deca- 
dence of  the  craft  in  France.  Of  late  years,  at 
least,  bookbinding  has  shared  the  misfortune  of 
most  of  the  other  fine  arts  in  England,  and 
has  lingered  in  a  condition  only  less  lament- 
able than  that  of  sculpture  and  painting  because 
it  contented  itself  chiefly  with  dull  and  honest 
imitation  of  the  dead-and-gone  masters.  Every 
artist  must  needs  serve  his  apprenticeship  and 
follow  in  the  footsteps  of  a  teacher,  but  where 
Trautz,  for  example,  sought  inspiration  only, 
Bedford  and  the  other  British  binders  found 
models  which  they  copied  slavishly.  The  work- 
manship of  the  bindings  that  left  their  shops 
was  honest  and  thorough,  but  the  decoration 
was  lifeless  and  colourless.     The   British  artisan 


1 26       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

forwarded    conscientiously,  but    the    finishing  of 
the   British  artist  was  sadly  to  seek. 

How  inert  the  art  of  bookbinding  was  in 
England  during  nearly  four-score  years  can  be 
seen  by  glancing  over  the  "  Catalogue  of  Fif- 
teen Hundred  Books  remarkable  for  the 
Beauty  or  the  Age  of  their  Bindings"  issued 
by  Mr.  Quaritch  in  1888.  Here  the  curious 
inquirer  will  find,  under  numbers  1 325-1 345,  a 
score  of  books  bound  by  Francis  Bedford, 
whom  Mr.  Quaritch  declares  to  be  the  best 
binder  who  ever  lived  —  meaning  thereby,  no 
doubt,  the  best  forwarder;  and  every  one  of 
these  books  is  finished  in  imitation  of  some 
French  binder.  Nos.  1325  and  1326  are  "bound 
in  imitation  of  Derome  le  jeune,"  the  catalogue 
declares  frankly,  in  apparent  unconsciousness 
of  the  hopelessly  inartistic  position  to  which 
this  confession  assigns  the  British  craftsman. 
No.  1327  is  "in  imitation  of  Padeloup."  No. 
1328  is  "bound  in  imitation  of  the  work  of 
Hardy-Dumennil,"  a  French  binder  not  of  the 
highest  esteem  among  book-lovers.  Nos.  1329, 
^l3^->   ^ZZ^-i  '^^cl   1339  are  copied    from    Trautz. 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        127 

Nos.   1334,    1335,  and    1345   are    "bound  in  imi- 
tation of  Chambolle-Duru." 

This    artistic    sterility    was    probably    due    to 


XSSOESBBSPi 


:  ilx*.'.-.-: 


"  THE  STORY  OF  SIGURD  THE  VOLSUNG  AND  THE  FALL  OF  THE  NIBLUNGS." 

Size,  7%  in.  X  sJ^  in.     Bound  by  Cobden-Sanderson. 

the  lack  of  intelligent  patronage,  and  the  slug- 
gishness of  the  book-lover  is  responsible  for 
this  disheartening  result.    But  the  custom  seems 


1 28        Bookbmdings  Old  and  New. 

to  obtain  even  in  the  present  day,  if  one  may 
accept  as  evidence  the  second  edition  of  Mr. 
Zaehnsdorf  s    "  The  Art    of    Bookbindinor."      In 


"ATALANTA   IN   CALYDOX." 

Size,  ^Vi  in.  X  dVt  in.    Bound  by  Cobdeu-Sanderson. 

this  practical  guide  to  his  art,  the  author,  a 
bookbinder  himself  and  the  son  of  a  bookbinder, 
gives  plates  of  typiceJ  covers  of  the  chief  styles; 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.       129 

and  these  are  not  genuine  specimens  bound  for 
Grolier  or  by  "  Le  Gascon."  They  are  appar- 
ently Mr.  Zaehnsdorf's  own  handiwork ;  cer- 
tainly the  plate  called  "  Gascon  "  {sic)  cannot  be 
the  work  of  the  great  Frenchman,  because  the 
book  is  one  first  published  perhaps  two  hun- 
dred years  after  his  death.  Here  we  discover  a 
conscientious  craftsman  not  only  content  to  be 
a  humble  imitator,  but  so  deficient  in  any 
appreciation  of  originality  that  he  sees  no 
difference  between  the  model  of  his  master 
and  his  own  second-hand  copy. 

And  yet  Francis  Bedford  was  capable  of 
original  work,  simple  always,  but  with  a  quiet 
dignity  of  its  own.  Mr.  Zaehnsdorf  is  an 
accomplished  workman,  able  to  send  from  his 
shop  books  dressed  with  propriety,  and,  at 
times,  not  without  individuality.  Mr.  Roger  de 
Coverly  is  another  British  binder  whose  labours 
are  liked  by  book-lovers.  The  most  original 
figure  among  the  English  binders  of  this  cen- 
tury—  in  fact,  the  only  original  figure  since 
Roger  Payne  —  is   Mr.  Cobden-Sanderson. 

Mr.    Cobden-Sanderson    is    one    of    the    most 


130      Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

characteristic  personalities  in  the  strange  strug- 
gle for  artistic  freedom  now  going  on  in   Eng- 


"  HOMERI    ILIAS." 

Size,  514  in.  x  3%  in.     Bound  by  Cobden-Sanderson. 

land.  He  is  a  friend  and  fellow-labourer  of  Mr. 
William  Morris  and  of  Mr.  Walter  Crane  with 
whose    socialistic    propaganda    he    is    in    sympa- 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.       131 

thy,  and  with  whom   he   manifests   and  parades. 
He  takes  much  the  same  view  of  Hfe  that  they 


SHKLLF.V.      "THK    Kl'A'Ol.r    i  )1'    ISLAM. 

Size,  ZVi  in.  X  5V4  in.     Bound  by  Cobden-Sanderson. 

have;    he   holds  the    same    creed    as   to   society, 
and  as  to  each  man's  duty  toward  it ;  he  has  the 


132       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

same  aim  in  art ;  and  he  is  gifted  with  not  a 
httle  of  the  same  decorative  instinct.  Believ- 
ing in  handicraft  as  the  salvation  of  humanity, 
and  that  a  man  should  labour  with  his  hands, 
he  abandoned  the  bar,  and  studied  the  trade  of 
the  binder.  Perhaps  it  is  hardly  unfair  to  call 
him  an  amateur  —  so  Mr.  Hunt  was  an  ama- 
teur when  he  desio:ned  those  most  beautiful 
wrought-iron  gates  at  Newport.  IMr.  Cobden- 
Sanderson's  forwarding  has  not  yet  attained  to 
the  highest  professional  standard.  But  there 
are  not  lacking  book-lovers  who  believe  him 
to  be  the  most  orio-inal  and  the  most  effective 
finisher  who  has  yet  appeared  in  England. 

His  tooling  is  admirably  firm  and  dazzlingly 
vigorous.  Whatever  the  inadequacy  of  his 
workmanship  in  the  processes  which  precede 
the  gilding, — and  in  these  his  hand  is  steadily 
gaining  strength,  —  there  is  no  disputing  his 
decorative  endowarient.  He  brought  to  the 
study  of  bookbinding  an  alert  intelligence,  a 
trained  mind,  and  a  determination  to  master 
the  secrets  of  the  art.  He  does  all  his  own 
work,    beins:    both   forwarder    and    finisher,    un- 


"IN   MEMORIAM." 

Size,  6%  in.  x  ^Vi  in.     Bound  by  Cobden-Sanderson. 
133 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.       135 

aided  even  by  an  apprentice,  although  his  wife 
(a  daughter  of  Richard  Cobden)  has  taken 
charge  of  the  sewing.  He  designs  his  own 
tools,  having  them  cut  especially  for  him. 
Even  the  letters  he  uses  were  drawn  for  him 
by  Miss  May  Morris ;  and  he  makes  a  most 
artful  use  of  lettering,  —  working  initials,  names, 
titles,  and  mottos  into  his  design,  and  making 
them  an  integral  and  essential  part  of  the 
scheme  of  decoration.  He  has  studied  most 
lovingly  the  methods  of  "  Le  Gascon,"  and  he 
has  assimilated  some  of  the  taste  of  that 
master  of  the  art;  it  is  from  "  Le  Gascon,"  no 
doubt,  that  Mr.  Cobden-Sanderson  caught  the 
knack  of  powdering  parts  of  his  design  with 
gold  points,  stars,  single  leaves,  and  the  like 
\  —  a  device  giving  the  utmost  brilliancy  to 
the  design  if  used  skilfully. 

Mr.     Cobden-Sanderson     will     not     work     to 
order.     He  binds   only  those  books  that  please 
j  him,    and    he    binds    them    as    he    pleases.     He 
j   is    independent    of    the     caprices    of    his    cus- 
[   tomers.      He    does     not     undertake     many    vol- 
umes,    and     with     each     he     does     his     best. 


136      Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

When    a    novice,   trying   his   'prentice    hand,   he 
wasted    himself    more     than    once    on    volumes 


■"THE   LIFE  AND   DEATH   OF  JASON. 
Bound  bv  Cobden-Sanderson. 


of  no  great  value,  and  put  a  fifty  dollar 
binding  on  a  book  not  worth  five  —  a  pe- 
cuniary   solecism,    an     artistic     incongruity.     Of 


Bookbindings  Old  and  Nezv.        137 

late  he  has  not  fallen  into  this  blunder, 
and  he  prefers  to  spend  himself  on  books  of 
permanent  value  in  the  original  edition.  Of 
course  he  never  repeats  himself ;  every  one 
of  his  bindings  is  as  unique  as  a  picture ; 
there  are  no  replicas.  Every  cover  is  com- 
posed for  the  volume  itself,  and  is  often  the 
outcome  of  a  loving  study  of  the  author,  a 
decorative  scheme  having  been  suggested  by 
some  representative  passage. 

But  he  never  confounds  decoration  with 
illustration ;  as  he  explained  in  an  article  on 
his  art,  "  beauty  is  the  aim  of  decoration, 
and  not  illustration,  or  the  expression  of 
ideas."  So  we  do  not  find  on  his  books 
any  of  the  childish  symbolism  which  has 
been  abundantly  advocated  in  England,  and 
according  to  which  a  treatise  on  zoology  or 
botany  must  be  adorned  with  an  animal  or 
a  flower  —  a  bald  and  babyish  labelling  of  a 
book  wholly  unrelated  to  propriety  of  orna- 
mentation. Mr.  Cobden-Sanderson's  covers  are 
generally  rich  with  conventionalized  flowers 
arrayed   with    geometrical    precision.     He    falls 


138       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

into  a  naturalistic  treatment  only  at  rare  and 
regrettable  moments.  In  a  copy  of  Mr.  Mor- 
ris's "  Hopes  and  Fears  for  Art,"  which  Mr. 
Cobden-Sanderson  has  bound,  the  design  has 
a  careful  freedom  of  composition  and  an  artful 
symmetry;  the  treatment  of  the  rose-branches 
which  form  the  border  is  almost  purely  con- 
ventional, and  the  broad  blank  space  in  the 
centre  is  restfully  open. 

In  America  the  art  of  the  binder  is  retarded 
by  reasons  really  outside  of  art  —  by  the  high 
wages  of  skilled  workmen,  and  by  the  high 
tariff  on  raw  materials,  which  have  so  raised 
the  cost  of  the  best  bookbinding  that  many 
book-lovers  in  New  York  have  been  wont  to 
send  their  precious  tomes  on  a  long  voyage 
across  the  Atlantic,  to  be  bound  in  London 
or  Paris.  Americans  were  among  the  best 
customers  of  Francis  Bedford,  and  the  cata- 
logue of  the  Grolier  Club  exhibition  proves 
that  they  have  been  persistent  purchasers  of  the 
best  work  of  contemporary  French  binders. 
But  to  send  books  abroad  to  be  bound  is  no 
way    to    encourage    the    development     of     the 


A  UINDING   BY   COliUEN-SANDERSON. 


NEW  TESTAMENT. 


Bound  by  William  Matthews,  in  light  brown  crushed  levant,  inlaid  with  blue 

and  red  morocco.     By  permission  of  Mr.  Matthews. 

141 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        1 43 

art  at  home.  This  same  Groher  Chib  exhibi- 
tion showed  that  American  craftsmen  were  cap- 
able of  turning  out  work  of  a  very  high  rank. 
The  best  of  the  books  bound  by  Mr.  William 
Matthews,  by  Mr.  Alfred  Matthews,  by  Brad- 
streets,  by  Mr.  Smith,  and  by  Mr.  Stikeman, 
held  their  own  fairly  well.  Considering  the  dif- 
ficulties under  which  the  art  has  developed  in 
this  country,  the  showing  made  by  the  Amer- 
ican binders  was  the  most  creditable. 

For  a  binding  like  Mr.  William  Matthew's 
"  Knickerbocker's  History  of  New  York,"  there 
is  no  need  to  make  any  apology ;  it  is  excellent 
in  conception  and  in  execution,  pure  in  style, 
modestly  original,  and  most  harmoniously  decora- 
tive, with  its  appropriate  ship,  its  tiny  tulips,  and 
its  wreaths  of  willow.  The  inventor  of  these 
designs  for  the  inside  and  the  outside  of  the 
Knickerbocker  was  Mr.  Louis  J.  Rhead,  whom 
Mr.  Matthews  had  called  to  his  aid. 

Although  both  Mr.  Matthews  and  Mr.  Rhead 
are  Englishmen  by  birth,  I  think  I  can  feel  an 
American  influence  in  the  decoration  of  this 
American    book.     If    I    am    right,    this    is    evi- 


144        Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

dence,  were  any  needed,  of  the  great  advantage 

tlicre  is  in  having  a  book  bound  by  a  coun- 
tryman of  the  autlior,  who  will  treat  it  with 
unconscious  propriety  of  decoration.  I  know 
a  wise  collector  in  New  York  who  makes 
it  a  rule  to  have  his  French  books  bound  in 
Paris,  his  English  books  bound  in  London, 
and  his  American  books  bound  here  in  New 
York. 

"  Fifty  years  ago,"  said  Mr.  William  Matthews 
in  his  interestinor  address  on  his  art,  "  there 
was  not  a  finely  bound  book,  except  what  by 
chance  had  been  procured  abroad,  to  be  found 
in  anv  collection  in  America.  Fine  binding^ 
was  an  unknown  art."  Now  in  the  last  de- 
cade of  the  nineteenth  century,  Mr.  Matthews 
thinks  "  there  are  many  examples  of  American 
workmanship  in  our  collections  that  would  do 
honour  to  the  best  French  and  Enfylish  binders  of 

O 

the  last  half-centur}'."       If  this  is  true,  much  of 
the  credit  for  the  improvement  of  public  taste  is 
due  to  the  influence  of  ^Ir.   Matthews  himself. 
Of  modern  Italian  and  German  binding  there 
is  no  necessity  or  space  to    say  anything    here. 


IRVING'S  "KNICKERBOCKER'S   HISTORY   OF   NEW   YORK. 

Bound  by  William  Matthews.     Publislierl  by  the  Grolier 

Club,  1888.     Owned  by  Mr.  William  Matthews. 

145 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        147 

The  tradition  of  vellum  binding  has  been  kept 
alive  in  Rome  and  in  Florence,  where  the  bevel- 
edged  white  tomes  are  often  relieved  by  an  inlaid 
rectangle  of  coloured  calf,  tooled  with  what  might 
perhaps  be  called  fairly  enough  a  Neo-Aldine 
pattern.  The  exhibition  of  the  Grolier  Club, 
which  has  aided  in  the  preparation  and  in  the 
illustration  of  these  pages,  included  no  Italian 
work,  —  and  this  is  evidence  that  our  collec- 
tors, rightly  or  wrongly,  do  not  hold  it  in  high 
esteem. 

Nor  was  there  a  single  specimen  of  Teutonic 
handiwork.  Yet  Trautz  was  a  German  by  birth, 
and  earlier  in  this  century  there  were  several 
German  binders  established  in  England  — 
Walther,  Kalthoeber,  Staggemeier.  Even 
now,  while  one  of  the  leading  binders  of  Lon- 
don, Mr.  Riviere,  is  of  French  descent,  another, 
Mr.  Zaehnsdorf,  is  of  German,  In  New  York 
many  of  the  journeyman  bookbinders  are  Ger- 
mans. Not  only  was  the  bibliopegic  art  of 
Germany  unrepresented  at  this  recent  exhi- 
bition in  New  York,  but  in  none  of  the  many 
recent    books    about  binding,   French,    English, 


148       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

and  American,  do  I  find  any  attention  paid 
to  the  work  of  the  modern  Germans.  Several 
years  ago  M.  Rouveyre  of  Paris,  who  had 
pubHshed  half  a  dozen  books  about  binding, 
arranged  for  a  French  edition  of  a  collection  of 

O 

German  bindings ;  and  of  "  La  Dorure  sur  Cuir 
(Reliure,  Ciselure,  Gaufrure)  en  Allemagne." 
Fifty  copies  were  issued,  the  same  publisher  hav- 
ing risked  fifteen  hundred  copies  of  M.  Octave 
Uzanne's  "  La  Reliure  Moderne."  From  the 
well-made  reproductions  in  this  volume,  it  is 
fair  to  infer  that  the  German  binding  of  to-day 
is  not  remarkably  interesting.  It  is  sometimes 
dull  and  sometimes  pretentious;  it  is  frequently 
designed  by  architects  who  are  without  training 
in  the  needs  and  possibilities  of  its  technic ;  it  is 
often  violently  polychromatic ;  and  it  is  sometimes 
set  off  by  elaborate  panels  of  inserted  enamel, 
and  by  richly  chiselled  corners  and  centrepieces 
of  silver.  What  is  best  is  the  artful  employ- 
ment of  vigorous  blind-tooling;  and  what  is 
most  noteworthy  is  the  successful  revival  of  the 
mediaeval  art  of  carving  in  leather,  always  best 
understood  by  the  Germans. 


INSIDE  COVER   OF   PRECEDING. 
149 


III. 

THE  OUTLOOK  FOR  THE  FUTURE. 

Much  as  one  might  expect  a  precious  metal 
to  enrich  a  tome,  there  is  more  than  a  hint  of 
Teutonic  heaviness  in  most  of  these  carved- 
leather  covers,  girt  with  soHd  silver  clasps,  and 
armed  with  chased  medallions.  The  occasional 
attempts  of  American  silversmiths  at  book-dec- 
oration are  lighter  and  more  graceful.  I  have 
seen  more  than  one  prayer-book,  the  smooth 
dark  calfskin  of  which  was  shielded  by  a  thin 
shell  of  silver  pierced  with  delicate  arabesques. 
But  this  is  almost  an  accidental  return  to  a 
method  of  ornamentation  long  past  its  useful- 
ness, and  appropriate  only  when  every  book  was 
a  portly  tome  bound  in  real  boards,  and  repos- 
ing in  solitary  glory  on  its  own  lectern.  The 
future  of  bookbinding  does  not  lie  in  any  alli- 
ance with  silversmithery. 

Just   where    the    future    of   bookbinding   docs 

151 


152        Bookbindings  Old  and  Neiu. 

He  is  very  difficult  to  declare.  Cosmopolitan 
commonplace  is  the  characteristic  of  much  of 
the  work  of  to-day.  Craftsmen  of  remarkable 
technical  skill  are  content  with  convention- 
ality and  they  go  on  indefinitely  repeating  the 
old  styles,  —  Maioli  and  Grolier,  Padeloup  and 
Derome,  —  styles  which  were  once  alive,  but 
which  have  long  since  been  void  of  any  germ 
of  vitality.  To  persist  in  using  them  is  like 
refusing  to  speak  any  language  but  Latin. 
For  a  man  alive  to-day  a  living  dialect,  how- 
ever impure,  is  better  than  a  lifeless  language, 
however  perfect.  There  are  not  wanting  signs 
of  a  reaction  against  the  banality  of  modern 
bookbinding. 

One  of  them  is  the  instant  success  of  Mr. 
Cobden-Sanderson's  innovations.  Another  is 
the  return  to  silver-mounting.  Yet  a  third, 
curious  only,  and  infertile,  is  the  decoration  of 
a  book-cover  with  enamels,  either  incrusted  or 
applied.  The  Germans  have  taken  to  letting 
a  monogram,  ornamented  or  metal,  into  the 
centre  of  a  book-cover ;  but  nothing  seems  to 
be  gained    by  this    which    a   mosaic    of    leather 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        153 

would  not  have  given.  The  late  Philippe 
Burty,  the  distinguished  French  art-critic,  and 
a  book-lover  with  the  keenest  likinsf  for  nov- 
elty,  had  a  copy  on  Dutch  paper  of  Poulet- 
Malassis's  essay  on  "  Ex-Libris " ;  he  enriched 
it  with  other  interesting  book-plates;  he  in- 
serted a  few  autograph  letters  ;  he  had  it  bound 
by  R,  Petit  in  full  morocco,  with  his  mono- 
gram at  the  corners ;  and  in  the  centre  of  the 
side  he  let  in  a  metal  plate  on  which  his  own 
book-plate  was  enamelled  in  niello.  This  singu- 
larly personal  binding  is  reproduced  in  M.  Oc- 
tave Uzanne's  volume  on  "  La  Reliure  Moderne," 
where  we  find  another  of  M.  Burty's  experi- 
ments, a  copy  of  M.  Claudius  Popelin's  "  De 
la  Statue  et  de  la  Peinture  "  (translated  from 
Alberti),  also  bound  by  Petit,  and  also  identi- 
fied by  the  owner's  monogram,  and  having, 
moreover,  in  the  centre  of  the  side,  an  enam- 
elled panel  made  by  M.  Popelin  himself  for 
his  friend's  copy  of  his  own  book. 

Burty  had  in  his  collections  other  volumes  dis- 
tinguished by  enamels ;  and  there  were  in  the 
Grolier  Club  exhibition  a  set  of  books  belonging 


154       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

to  Mr.  S.  P.  Avery,  and  quite  as  much  out  of 
the  common  as  Burty's.  Mr.  Avery  has  sent 
certain  volumes  of  the  "  BibHotheque  de  I'En- 
seignement  des  Beaux-arts "  to  the  authors, 
asking  each  to  indicate  the  binding  which  he 
thought  most  consonant  with  his  work;  so 
Mr.  Avery  has  "  La  Faience,"  of  M.  Theodore 
Deck,  decorated  with  panels  of  pottery,  one  of 
them  being  a  portrait  of  the  author  executed 
at  his  own  ceramic  works;  and  he  has  Sauzy's 
"  Marvels  of  Glass-Making,"  with  covers  con- 
taining glass  panels  enamelled  in  colours. 
These  ventures  belong  among  the  curiosities 
of  the  art ;  they  are  to  be  classed  among  the 
freaks  rather  than  with  the  professional 
beauties. 

Another  book  of  Burty's  (now  owned  by 
Mr.  Avery)  has  an  exceptional  interest  —  an 
interest  perhaps  rather  literary  than  rigidly 
artistic.  It  is  a  copy  of  the  original  edition 
of  Victor  Hugo's  scorching  satire,  "  Napoleon 
le  Petit,"  published  in  1853,  a  few  months 
after  Napoleon  had  broken  his  oath  and  made 
himself   emperor;   this    copy  (made    doubly  pre- 


Bookbindings  Old  aiid  New.        155 

cious  by  three  lines  in  the  poet's  handwriting) 
was  bound  in  dark  green  morocco,  and  the 
side  was   hollowed    out   to   receive  an    embroid- 


"  LES  CHATIMENTS."     VICTOR  HUGO,  1853. 

Bound  by  Petit.     Green  morocco.    The  "  Bee  "  from  the  throne  of  Napo- 
leon ni.,  Tuileries,  September,  1870.     Owned  by  Mr.  Samuel  P.  Avery. 

ered  bee  —  a  bee  which  had  been  cut  from 
the  throne  of  Napoleon  III.  in  the  Tuileries  a 
few  days  after  the  battle  of  Sedan.  This  is 
the    very    irony    of    bookbinding.     A    copy    of 


156       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

"  Les  Chatiments "  was  bound  to  match. 
Future  collectors  will  find  these  bees  of  Burty 
even  harder  to  acquire  than  those  which  mark 
the  books  of  De  Thou. 

Unusual,  not  to  say  unique,  as  such  an 
opportunity  must  be,  there  is  here  a  hint  for 
the  book-lover  not  by  him  to  be  despised. 
Here  at  least  is  an  exceptional  binding.  Here 
at  least  we  leave  the  monotonous  iteration  of 
the  cut-and-dried.  Here  is  a  method  of  estab- 
lishing a  relation  between  the  subject  of  the 
book  and  its  exterior  not  hitherto  attempted. 
For  nine  books  out  of  ten  the  conventional 
binding  suffices,  Jansenist  crushed  levant  for 
the  costly  volumes,  simple  half  morocco  for 
those  less  valuable.  But  for  the  special  treas- 
ures, for  the  books  with  an  individuality  of 
their  own,  why  may  we  not  abandon  this  bar- 
ren impersonality  and  seek  to  get  out  of  the 
regular  rut  ? 

M.  Octave  Uzanne  has  avowed  that  he 
would  prefer  to  have  a  copy  of  the  "  Legende 
des  Siecles "  clad  soberly  in  a  fragment  of  the 
dark-green  uniform  which  Hugo  wore  the  day  he 


Bookbindings  Old  mid  New.       157 

was  received  into  the  French  Academy,  to  the 
same  volume  bound  with  the  utmost  luxury 
by  the  best  binder  of  the  time.  Perhaps  it  is 
carrying  this  fancy  a  little  too  far  to  bind  the 
Last  Dying  Speech  and  Confession  of  a  mur- 
derer in  a  strip  of  his  own  hide  properly 
tanned,  or  even  to  cover  Holbein's  "  Dance  of 
Death  "  with  a  like  ghastly  integument ;  but  I 
confess  I  should  find  a  particular  pleasure  in 
owning  the  copy  of  Washington  Irving's 
"  Conquest  of  Grenada,"  which  Mr.  Roger  de 
Coverly  bound  "  in  Spanish  morocco  from 
Valencia"  for  the  Arts  and  Crafts  Exhibition 
in  London  in   1S89. 

In  his  "  Caprices  d'un  Bibliophile,"  pub- 
lished in  1878,  M.  Octave  Uzanne  urged 
book-lovers  to  seek  out  a  greater  variety  of 
leathers.  The  French  are  not  afBicted  with 
what  Dickens  called  "  that  underdone  pie-crust 
cover  which  is  technically  known  as  law-calf," 
and  which  is  desolately  monotonous  ;  nor  have 
they  ever  cared  either  for  sprinkled  calf,  as 
dull  and  decorous  as  orthodoxy,  or  for  "  tree- 
marbled    calf,"  much    affected    by  the     British. 


i5<S       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

That  the  French  do  not  take  to  tree-calf  is 
proof  at  once  of  their  taste  and  of  their  wisdom. 
Mr.  Matthews  declares  that  he  does  not 
recommend  tree-calf,  and  M.  Marius-Michel 
speaks  of  the  process  of  marbling  it  with 
acids  as  "a  diabolic  invention,"  since  it  rots 
the  leather  —  as  every  one  knows  who  has 
the  misfortune  to  own  books  bound  in  this 
fashion  half  a  century  ago.  The  French,  with 
a  full  understanding  of  the  principles  of  book- 
binding, have  confined  their  attention  almost 
wholly  to  calf  and  to  morocco,  eschewing  even 
the  pleasant-smelling  Russia-leather,  which  be- 
comes brittle,  and  has  a  tendency  to  crack, 
unless  it  is  constantly  handled,  whereby  it 
absorbs  animal  oil  from  the  human  finders. 

In  the  employment  of  other  leathers  than 
calf  and  morocco  we  Americans  have  taken 
the  lead.  Books  bound  in  alligator,  and  in 
sealskin,  for  example,  are  to  be  found  in  any 
of  the  leading  bookstores,  not  always  appropri- 
ately clad,  I  regret  to  remark.  There  is  a 
hideous  incongruity,  for  instance,  in  sheathing 
the  wisdom  of  Emerson  in  alligator-hide,  fit   as 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        159 

this  scaly  substance  might  be  for  the  weird 
tales  of  Poe.  Equally  horrible  is  a  prayer-book 
covered  with  snakeskins ;  and  both  of  these 
bibliopegic  freaks  have  been  offered  to  me 
by  tradesmen  more  enterprising  than  artistic. 

Gautier's  "  Une  Nuit  de  Cleopatre,"  that 
strange  tale  of  the  serpent  of  old  Nile,  might  fitly 
be  protected  by  the  skin  of  the  crocodile ;  and 
Captain  Bourke's  book  about  the  "  Snake-Dance 
of  the  Moquis  of  Arizona"  seems  to  call  for  an 
ophidian  integument.  So  might  we  clothe  a 
volume  describing  a  voyage  to  Alaska  in  seal- 
skin, or  an  account  of  Australia  in  the  hide  of 
the  kangaroo.  It  w^ould  be  a  quaint  fancy 
to  put  our  old  favourite  "  Rab  and  his  Friends " 
in  dogskin  (easily  to  be  had  from  the  glovers) ; 
and  our  new  friend  "  Uncle  Remus,"  in  the 
soft  coat  of  Brer  Rabbit.  Champfleury's  "  Les 
Chats,"  and  M.  Anatole  France's  old-fashioned 
and  cheerful  "  Crime  de  Sylvestre  Bonnard " 
could  be  bound   in  catskin. 

In  more  than  one  of  the  old  treatises  on 
bookbinding  is  mention  made  of  an  ardent 
admirer    of    Charles    James    Fox,    who   had    the 


1 60        Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

speeches  of  his  idol  covered  with  a  vulpine 
liide  —  which  would  serve  better,  it  seems  to 
me,  as  a  coat  for  a  volume  of  hunting  reminis- 
cences. So  might  the  life  of  Daniel  Boone  be 
bound  in  the  skin  of  a  "  b'ar "  like  that  which 
the  pioneer  "  cilled " ;  and  the  life  of  Davy- 
Crockett  could  be  clad  in  the  skin  of  the 
coon,  a  descendant  of  the  fabled  quadruped 
which  volunteered  to  come  down  when  he  dis- 
covered that  the  backwoodsman  had  drawn  a 
bead  on  him.  Dana's  "  Two  Years  before  the 
Mast "  would  look  well  in  whale-skin,  or,  if  that 
were  too  tough,  in  shark-skin  —  shagreen.  The 
"  Peau  d'ane "  of  Perrault  suggests  the  use  of 
the  hide  of  the  animal  who  once  disguised 
himself  in  the  lion's  skm ;  and  for  any  edi- 
tion of  ^sop's  "  Fables,"  an  indefinite  num- 
ber of  appropriate  leathers  lies  ready  to  one's 
hand. 

In  1890  Messrs.  Tiffany  &  Co.  issued  a  cat- 
alogue of  more  than  a  hundred  different  kinds 
of  leather  then  on  exhibition  in  their  store  on 
Union  Square,  and  ready  for  use  in  the  mak- 
ing  of   pocket-books,    bags,  blotters,   card-cases, 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        i6i 

and  the  like ;  and  all  these  are  available  for 
the  binding  of  books,  if  the  book-lover  will 
take  the  trouble  to  select  and  to  seek  for  the 
leather  best  suited  to  each  tome  in  its  turn. 
A  glance  over  the  list  of  Messrs.  Tiffany  & 
Co.  is  most  suggestive.  The  skin  of  the  cha- 
meleon, for  example,  how  aptly  this  would 
bedeck  the  orations  of  certain  professional  poli- 
ticians !  How  well  the  porcupine  would  suit 
the  later  writings  of  Mr.  Ruskin !  How  fitly 
the  black  bear  would  cover  the  works  of  Dr. 
Johnson,  "  author  of  the  contradictionary,"  as 
Hood  called  him !  I  have  already  noted  one 
book  best  bound  in  snake-skin,  but  perhaps 
the  uncanny  ophidian  had  better  be  reserved 
for  those  books  which  every  gentleman's  library 
should  be  without.  Yet  I  should  like  to  see 
the  speeches  of  Vallandigham  bound  in  the 
skin  of  a  copperhead. 

M.  Uzanne  also  advocated  that  the  monop- 
oly of  leather  should  be  infringed,  and  that 
books  be  bound  in  stuffs,  in  velvet  now  and 
again,  and  in  old  brocades.  And  what  could 
be  more  delightfully  congenial  to  Mr.  Dobson's 


1 62         Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

"  Vignettes  in   Rhyme,"  wherein  the  poet  sings 

of  the  days  when 

.     .     .     France's  bluest  blood 
Danced  to  the  tune  of  "After  us,  the  flood!" 

—  what  could  be  more  harmonious  to  his 
"  Proverbs  in  Porcelain,"  than  to  robe  those 
dainty  volumes  of  verse  in  a  remnant  of  dam- 
ask or  golden  brocade  saved  from  the  dress 
of  the  Pompadour?  What  could  be  a  fitter 
apparel  for  the  "  Madame  Crysantheme "  of 
Pierre  Loti  than  a  Japanese  silk  strangely 
embroidered,  with  a  label  of  Japanese  leather 
on  the  back,  and  with  Japanese  water-colours 
as   end-papers  ? 

In  M.  Uzanne's  later  volume  on  "  La  Reli- 
ure  Moderne  "  there  are  photogravures  of  books 
bound  in  accordance  with  hints  of  his  —  the 
cartonnage  a  la  Pompadour  for  one.  But  of 
all  those  who  were  reaching  out  in  new  direc- 
tions with  hope  of  renewing  the  art  of  the 
bookbinder,  Philippe  Burty  seemed  to  me  to 
have  been  the  most  fertile.  One  of  his  tenta- 
tives  was  a  bold  and  frequent  use  of  his  own 
monogram    in    the    decoration    of    his    books ; 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        163 

especially  noteworthy  was  the  skilful  employ- 
ment of  this  monogram  in  the  dentelle,  or 
border  of  the  inside,  oftener  than  not  disfie- 
ured  in  America  and  in  England  by  a  hack- 
neyed "  wheel,"  blurring  brutally  at  the  corners. 

In  the  bindings  of  Henry  II.  and  Diana  of 
Poitiers  we  can  see  the  most  admirable  utiliza- 
tion of  a  monogram  and  a  device ;  and  here 
is  a  model  modern  book-decorators  may  follow 
from  afar  as  best  they  can.  So,  too,  Longe- 
pierre  made  use  of  the  emblem  of  the  Golden 
Fleece,  for  which  to-day  bibliopegic  argonauts 
voyage  in  vain.  In  the  cutting  of  special 
tools,  monograms,  devices,  significant  emblems, 
—  masks,  lyres,  torches,  or  tears, — each  owned 
by  the  individual  book-owner,  there  is  perhaps 
hope  of  some  relief  from  the  stereotyped  insi- 
pidity of  the  ordinary  binder's  stock  in  trade. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  indicate  the  probable 
line  of  bibliopegic  development.  Only  after 
many  a  vain  effort  and  many  a  doubtful  strug- 
gle do  we  ever  attain  the  goal  of  our  desires. 
Setting  our  faces  to  the  future,  we  must  let 
the    dead    past    bury    its    dead,    and    we    must 


1 64       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

give  up  the  lifeless  imitation  of  defunct  styles. 
Greater  variety  is  needed,  greater  freedom  also, 
such  as  some  of  the  other  decorative  arts  have 
achieved  of  late  years.  The  duty  of  the  book- 
lover  is  equal  to  that  of  the  bookbinder;  they 
must  needs  work  together  for  the  advance  of 
the  art.  For  their  collaboration  to  be  preg- 
nant the  book-lover  must  educate  himself  in 
the  possibilities  and  in  the  technical  limita- 
tions of  the  art.  Every  architect  will  confess 
that  he  has  had  many  a  practical  suggestion 
from  his  clients,  and  more  often  from  the 
wives  of  his  clients ;  and  the  influence  of  the 
book-lover  on  the  bookbinder  can  be  even 
more   beneficial. 

In  dealing  with  the  ordinary  uninspired 
workman,  perhaps  the  less  said  the  better, 
and  the  simpler  the  work  entrusted  to  him  the 
more  satisfactory  it  is  likely  to  be.  Here,  per- 
haps, the  most  that  can  be  done  is  to  follow 
the  fashion  and  prescribe  the  style.  With  an 
intelligent  binder,  fond  of  his  art,  and  not 
afraid  of  a  step  aside  from  the  beaten  path, 
the   book-lover  can   do    much,    encouraging    his 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.       1 65 

ally,  lending  him  boldness,  keeping  him  up  to 
the  mark,  sustaining  him  to  do  his  best,  show- 
ing him  the  most  interesting  work  that  has 
been  done  elsewhere.  The  relation  of  the 
patron  —  offensive  vocable  —  to  the  decorative 
artist  is  not  unlike  that  of  the  stage-manager 
to  the  actor,  Samson  to  Rachel,  for  instance, 
M.  Sardou  to  Mme.  Sarah-Bernhardt ;  he  can 
show  what  he  wants  done,  even  though  he 
cannot  do  it  himself.  This  is  what  Grolier 
did,  and  De  Thou,  and  M.  Burty.  Thus  the 
bookbinder  and  the  book-lover  fare  forward 
together,  making  interesting  experiments, 
whereby  the  art  progresses,  even  though  the 
most  of  the  experiments  fail. 

That  the  book-lover  and  the  bookbinder  can 
put  their  heads  together,  it  is  needful  that  the 
latter  should  be  an  individual  and  not  a  fac- 
tory. There  must  be  binderies  for  the  com- 
mercial work  (of  which  I  shall  speak  in  the 
next  chapter),  for  "  edition  binding,"  as  it  is 
called ;  but  "  extra  binding,"  the  covering  of  a 
single  volume  in  accord  with  the  wishes  of 
the  owner  of  that  one  book,  can  best  be  done 


1 66       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

where  the  artist-artisan  is  at  Hberty  to  meet 
his  customer  face  to  face,  that  they  may  talk 
the  matter  over.  Most  binderies  are  little  more 
than  factories,  with  many  machines,  and  a  close 
division  of  labour,  and  a  foreman  who  lays  out 
the  work  of  the  "  hands."  This  is  not  the  \vay 
Mr.  Cobden-Sanderson  is  able  to  delight  us 
with  his  lovely  design,  nor  is  it  the  way 
Trautz  carried  on  his  business.  An  artist  as 
independent  as  Mr.  Cobden-Sanderson,  and  as 
rigid  in  his  independence,  is  best  apart;  he 
broods  in  solitude,  and  we  profit  by  his  dream. 
Trautz  had  three  assistants  at  the  most ;  he 
was  his  own  forwarder  and  his  own  finisher: 
and  the  patron  had  no  difficulty  in  dealing 
directly  with  the  man  who  was  to  do  the  work. 
Not  only  is  this  friendly  relation  vital  to 
the  progress  of  the  art,  but  the  factory  system 
is  fatal  to  it,  when  the  capitalist  at  the  head 
of  the  bindery  is  willing  selfishly  to  take  the 
credit  of  all  that  is  done  in  his  shop.  For  a 
competent  designer,  with  the  proper  pride  of 
an  artist,  so  suppressed  a  position  is  intoler- 
able.    If  the  forwarding  and  the  finishing  of  a 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        167 

book  are  by  different  hands,  the  owner  of  the 
book  ought  to  know  it,  and  the  two  men  who 
cooperate  ought  to  know  that  he  knows  it. 

Perhaps  what  the  art  of  bookbinding  is  most 
in  need  of  just  now  is  the  estabhshment  of 
the  individual  binder,  an  artisan-artist  in  a 
shop  of  his  own  with  an  immediate  assistant 
or  two,  and  maybe  a  pair  of  apprentices.  Then 
the  binder  will  sign  the  work  he  does,  and 
the  work  will  bear  the  name  of  the  man  who 
really  did  it  and  no  other.  The  superiority  of 
American  wood-engraving  over  the  British  is 
due  partly  at  least  to  the  fact  that  in  the 
United  States  the  engraver  is  one  individual 
artist,  while  in  Great  Britain  he  is  either  a 
shop-keeper  or  a  factory  hand. 


COMMERCIAL  BOOKBINDING. 


COMMERCIAL  BOOKBINDING. 


THE    ANTIQUITY    OF    EDITION    BINDING. 

In  one  of  the  annual  volumes  of  "  La  Vie  a 
Paris,"  stout  tomes  of  cheerful  gossip,  inter- 
mitted now  that  the  author  is  the  director  of 
the  Theatre  Fran9ais,  and  a  member  of  the 
French  Academy,  M.  Jules  Claretie  tells  a 
pleasant  anecdote  of  a  contemporary  Parisian 
binder  who  was  asked  to  cover  one  of  the 
beautiful  books  which  M.  Conquet  sends  forth 
spasmodically  from  his  little  shop,  and  who 
drew  back  with  scorn,  declaring,  "  Sir,  I  will 
not  dishonour  myself  by  binding  a  modern 
book." 

This  craftsman's  pride  it  was,  no  doubt,  to 
clothe  the  stately  Aldine  and  the  pigmy  Elze- 
vir  in   fit    robes   of   crushed   morocco,   dccorat- 

171 


172       Bookbindings  Old  and  New, 

ino-  them  with  delicate  gold  traceries  tooled  bit 
by  bit,  and  lingered  over  lovingly.  To  him  it 
would  have  been  a  sad  shock,  had  he  been  told 
suddenly  that,  in  the  eyes  of  the  average  reader, 
a  book  is  bound  when  it  is  merely  cased  in  a 
cloth-cover  whereon  a  pattern  has  been  im- 
printed by  machinery.     Yet  so  it  is. 

Not  as  ours  the  books  of  old  — 
Things  that  steam  can  stamp  and  fold; 
Not  as  ours  the  books  of  yore  — 
Rows  of  type,  and  nothing  more. 

Ours  are  not  the  books  of  old,  but  sometimes, 
when  they  are  the  result  of  taking  thought  and 
pains,  they  have  a  merit  of  their  own ;  and  the 
thing  that  steam  can  stamp  and  fold  may  be  as 
lovely  in  its  way  as  the  poet's  missal  of  the  thir- 
teenth century,  around  which  the  illuminator's 
brother  monks  sang  "little  choruses  of  praise.'* 
The  beauty  of  the  modern  book  is  not  that 
of  the  book  of  yore.  There  will  always  be 
between  them  the  difference  which  separates 
work  done  by  machine  from  work  done  by 
hand  —  a  difference  wide  enough,  and  deep 
enough,    to   admit   of    no  denial.     But    the  vol- 


Bookbindings  Old  mid  New.       1 73 

umes  stamped  by  steam  may  have  their  own 
charm  and  their  own  quaUties  —  to  say  noth- 
ing of  their  superior  fitness  for  the  nineteenth 
century,  when  democracy  is  triumphant. 


Designed  by  Margaret  N.  Armstrong.     Published  by  Charles  Scribners  Sons. 
"ART  OUT-OF-DOORS,"   BY   MRS.    SCHUYLER   VAN    RENSSELAER. 

The  books  bound  in  thousands  for  pubHshers 
are  mostly  ill-bound  from  haste  and  greed,  from 
ignorance  and  reckless  disregard  of  art.  But 
once  in  a  way    they  attain    a   surprisingly  high 


1 74        Bookbindings  Old  mid  New. 

level.  Just  how  excellent  some  modern  com- 
mercial bindings  are,  scarcely  any  of  us  have 
taken  time  to  discover ;  for  we  are  prone  to  over- 
look not  a  few  of  the  best  expressions  of  con- 


Designed  by  Mis.  Henry  Whitman.     Published  by  Houghton,  Mifflin  it.  Co.     |  ^^("^ 
"AN   ISLAND   GARDEN,"   BY   CELIA  THAXTER. 


temporary  art,  natural  outgrowths  of  modern 
conditions,  in  our  persistent  seeking  for  some 
great  manifestation  which  we  fail  to  find. 

Of  a  certainty  the  great  manifestations  of  art 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        1 75 

are  hopelessly  rare;  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
little  things  far  more  often  attain  perfection  and 
reward  our  seeking.  A  chromolithographic 
placard  does  not  seem  to  promise  much  —  but 
in  M.  Cheret's  hands  the  pictorial  poster  is 
never  insipid,  and  has  often  a  most  engaging  and 
masterly  originality.  Cast-iron  is  an  unlovely 
material  —  but  by  recognizing  its  limitations, 
Alfred  Stevens  was  able  to  give  dignity  to  the 
little  lions  on  the  outer  rail  at  the  British 
Museum.  So  a  book-cover  stamped  by  steam 
may  be  a  thing  of  beauty  if  it  is  designed  by 
Mrs.  Whitman  or  by  Mr.  Stanford  White.  It 
is  a  fact  that  commercial  bookbinding,  often 
ignorantly  looked  down  on,  is  now  at  a  most 
interesting  stage  of  its  history;  and  it  seems 
to  me  very  well  worth  while  to  consider  some 
of  its  recent  successes. 

In  a  paper  on  "  Bookbinding  considered  as 
a  Fine-Art,  Mechanical  Art  and  Manufacture," 
read  before  the  Society  of  Arts  in  London,  Mr. 
Henry  B.  Wheatley  declared  that  "  cloth-bind- 
ing is  entirely  an  English  invention."  Just  as 
the  fine-art  of  bookbinding  began  in   Italy  dur- 


1 76       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

ing  the  Renascence,  and  was  most  highly  cul- 
tivated in  France,  so  the  art  of  cloth-binding, 
arising  in  Great  Britain,  has  been  carried  to  a 
higher  level  of  mechanical  perfection  by  ma- 
chines invented  or  mightily  improved  in  the 
United  States;  and  I  am  inclined  to  think  that 
the  principles  which  should  govern  the  decora- 
tion of  cloth  covers  are  better  understood  in 
New  York  than  in  London  —  in  so  far  at  least 
as  one  may  judge  from  the  results  of  their 
application. 

While  it  is  true  enough  that  cloth-binding 
is  an  English  invention,  commercial  binding, 
"  edition  work,"  as  it  is  called,  is  almost  as 
old  as  printing  itself.  The  early  printers,  from 
Aldus  in  Venice  to  Caxton  in  London,  were 
binders  as  they  were  also  publishers ;  and  very 
early  in  the  history  of  the  trade  were  there 
attempts  to  simplify  the  toil  of  the  finisher  who 
decorated  the  leather  sides  and  backs  of  the 
broad  volumes.  In  the  finest  of  the  early  books 
every  touch  of  gold  on  the  cover  was  made  by 
a  separate  tool,  which  the  skilled  workman 
impressed  on  the    leather   at   least    twice,    once 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        1 77 

without  the  gold,  and  once  to  affix  it,  a  slow, 
laborious,  and  expensive  process. 

One  of  the  first  of  the  devices  adopted  as  a 
short  cut  was  the  "  roulette "  or  roll,  a  complete 
pattern  engraved  on  the  circumference  of  a 
wheel,  and  reproducing  itself  as  the  wheel  was 
rolled  across  the  leather.  This  wheel  served 
for  borders  and  frameworks ;  it  was  often  most 
admirably  engraved ;  and  its  employment  was 
not  altogether  injurious  if  proper  care  was  taken 
to  match  the  corners  with  precision.  In  these 
days  when  omniscience  is  everybody's  foible 
it  may  seem  like  affectation  for  me  frankly  to 
confess  ignorance  as  to  the  origin  of  the  roll, 
but  I  think  it  was  first  seen  in   Italy. 

In  like  manner  I  must  avow  that  I  do  not 
know  for  certain  the  origin  of  the  next  labour- 
saving  device,  but  I  think  it  came  from  Ger- 
many; and  beyond  all  question  its  use  was 
most  frequent  there.  This  was  the  combina- 
tion of  engraved  blocks  into  a  pattern  more  or 
less  appropriate  to  the  book.  The  binder  had 
in  stock  a  variety  of  these  blocks,  of  different 
sizes  and  independent  in  subject,  or  related   in 


1 78        Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

pairs,  or  even  in  sets  of  four ;  and  he  would 
rearrange  these  corners,  centre-pieces,  and  panels 
as  best  he  could  to  suit  every  succeeding  book, 
availing  himself  also  of  the  roll,  and  falling  back 
on  hand-work  where  the  occasion  seemed  to 
demand  it.  Careless  as  this  method  often 
became,  it  was  still  a  crude  form  of  design, 
even  though  the  toil  of  the  hand  was  mini- 
mized to  the  utmost. 

But  one  step  needed  to  be  taken  to  get  rid 
altogether  of  hand-work  on  the  cover;  this  was 
to  engrave  a  design  for  the  whole  side  of  a  book, 
and  to  stamp  it  on  at  a  single  stroke  of  a  press. 
These  plates — plaqties  is  the  French  term  — 
were  probably  first  employed  by  the  Italians ; 
but  the  most  noted  of  those  who  made  early  use 
of  them  was  a  Frenchman,  Geoffroy  Tory,  the 
friend  of  Grolier,  and  the  would-be  reformer  of 
the  alphabet.  All  collectors  know  the  plate 
he  designed  for  the  Book  of  Hours  he  printed, 
which  was  a  staple  of  the  book  trade,  and  for 
which  there  was  an  unfailing  demand.  Tory's 
plate  was  original  and  complete  in  itself;  but 
another   plate    contemporary   with    it,    and    also 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        1 79 

reproduced  in  the  invaluable  essay  of  M.  Marius- 
Michel  on  "  La  Reliure  Fran9aise,  Commer- 
ciale  et  Industrielle,"  is  incomplete ;  it  was 
intended  to  spare  the  time  and  trouble  needed 
to  adorn  the  book-cover  with  the  elaborately- 
interlacing  arabesques  of  the  Grolier  type ;  but 
it  left  to  the  hand  of  the  workman  the  task  of 
adding  the  name  of  the  owner  of  the  book,  the 
scattered  gold  dots  which  greatly  enriched  the 
appearance,  and  a  few  other  details  here  and 
there.  It  is  instructive  to  note  how  adroitly 
the  means  have  been  adjusted  to  the  end. 

These  three  devices,  the  roll,  the  combina- 
tion of  blocks,  and  the  plate  complete  or  in- 
complete, mark  different  stages  of  the  develop- 
ment of  wholesale  binding;  and  they  existed 
simultaneously  for  centuries.  M.  Marius-Michel 
declares  that  out  of  every  hundred  of  the  smaller 
sized  volumes  sent  forth  by  the  printer-pub- 
lishers of  the  sixteenth  century,  eighty  have 
their  sides  stamped  by  a  plate  simulating  hand- 
work. The  original  editions  of  Rabelais,  of 
Montaigne,  of  Ronsard,  and  of  Clement  Marot, 
were   issued   more   often   than    not   with    plate- 


1 80       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

marked  sides.  There  is  in  M.  Marius-Michel's 
essay  a  drawing  of  a  block  used  to  aid  in  the 
imitation  of  the  brilHant  fanfares  of  "  Le  Gas- 
con." There  is  in  M.  Gruel's  "  Manuel  Histo- 
rique "  a  most  sumptuous  binding  by  Derome, 
in  which  there  was  no  hand-tooling  at  all,  save 
perhaps  a  monogram  or  a  coat-of-arms  here  and 
there ;  it  is  formed  by  combining  corners  and 
border-pieces,  and  it  was  stamped  in  a  press. 

The  chief  characteristic  of  the  early  German, 
Italian,  and  French  commercial  binding  is  that 
it  was  an  imitation  of  artistic  binding  done 
wholly  by  hand.  It  was  a  humbug  trying  to 
pass  itself  off  as  something  other  than  it  really 
was,  and  failing,  of  course,  as  fraud  always 
fails.  It  was  forever  forging  the  designs  it 
found  on  the  books  of  the  best  binders ;  and 
very  often  its  thefts  were  stupid,  although 
once  in  a  while  they  were  adroit.  Now  this 
copying  was  foolish,  because  in  art  the  imper- 
sonal machine  can  never  rival  the  personal 
hand  —  for  art  is  indeed  only  individuality.  M. 
Zola  defines  art  as  "  nature  seen  through  a 
temperament "  —  and    even     in     the     decorative 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        i8i 

arts  personality  is  omnipotent.  But  by  aban- 
doning all  thought  of  imitating  hand-work,  mod- 
ern commercial  bookbinding  has  a  fair  chance 
of  developing  according  to  its  own  conditions. 
The  machine  has  tireless  power  of  production 
and  absolute  regularity;  and  it  is  for  those  who 
set  the  machine  going  to  supply  that  personal 
touch  without  which  all  art  is  as  nausfht. 

o 


II. 

THE  MERITS  OF  MACHINE  BINDING.   . 

This  is  the  great  merit  of  modern  commer- 
cial bookbinding  done  by  machinery  —  that  it 
is  independent,  that  it  has  freed  itself  from  the 
trammels  and  the  traditions  of  hand-work,  that 
it  is  no  longer  a  savourless  sham  copying 
blindly,  that  it  lives  its  own  life.  It  recognizes 
the  fact,  obvious  enough  nowadays,  that  we  can- 
not all  be  as  Heber,  to  whom  Ferriar  sang: 

The  folio  Aldus  loads  your  happy  shelves, 

And  dapper  Elzevirs,  like  fairy  elves, 

Shew  their  light  forms  amidst  the  well-gilt  twelves. 

In  this  change  Great  Britain  and  the  United 
States  have  led  the  way,  followed  for  once  by 
France,  and,  after  an  interval,  by  Germany. 
It  was  in  frugal  Germany  that  "  half-binding " 
had  its  origin.  Half-binding  is  a  money-sav- 
ing contrivance,  which  lordly  book-lovers  have 
reprobated   as    equivalent    to    genteel    poverty. 

182 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        1 83 

The  Jansenists  used  to  keep  the  leather  sides 
of  their  books  free  from  ornament ;  and  some 
sparing  German  carried  this  simpHcity  one  step 
further,  substituting  paper  for  the  plain  surface 
of  leather  and  using  morocco  and  calf  only  for 
the  back,  and  for  a  narrow  but  needful  hinge  on 
each  side.  To  push  this  economy  a  little  fur- 
ther yet  was  easy ;  and  so  it  came  to  pass 
in  the  last  century  that  the  English  binders 
altogether  omitted  the  leather,  and  covered  with 
paper  both  the  sides  and  back.  Strictly  speak- 
ing, those  books  were  not  bound  at  all ;  they 
were  merely  cased  —  that  is,  sheathed  in  boards. 
A  casing  of  this  kind  was  the  most  temporary  of 
makeshifts.  Every  librarian  knows  how  fragile 
are  the  paper  and  pasteboard  which  envelop 
the  books  of  the  last  century.  The  back  is 
prone  to  crack  and  to  peel  off,  and  the  sides 
are  prompt  to  break  away ;  the  method  was  as 
slovenly  and  as  inconvenient  as  possible. 

Early  in  this  century  the  disadvantage  of 
paper-covered  boards  led  to  the  use  of  plain 
glazed  calico  in  place  of  the  paper.  There  was 
at    first    no    thouqht    of    decoration :   the    plain 


1 84        Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

calico  was  substituted  for  the  plain  paper  be- 
cause it  was  stronger  and  did  not  chip  and 
tear  quite  so  easily  ;  the  title  was  still  printed 
on  a  label  of  white  paper,  and  pasted  on  the 
back  of  the  volume.  The  exact  date  of  this 
improvement  is  in  doubt,  I  have  among  my 
Sheridaniana  the  third  edition  of  Dr.  Watkins's 
*'  Memoirs  of  the  Public  and  Private  Life  of  the 
Right  Honourable  Richard  Brinsley  Sheridan, " 
printed  for  Henry  Colburn  in  181 8,  and  both 
volumes  are  clad  in  glazed  calico,  with  a  slightly 
ribbed  surface  and  of  a  faded  purple  tint.  The 
date  of  the  biography  is  that  of  the  binding. 
"  Constable's  Miscellany,"  the  publication  of 
which  was  begun  in  1827,  said  to  have  been 
the  first  collection  regularly  bound  in  cloth ;  the 
cases  were  covered  in  the  simplest  fashion  with 
plain  calico,  and  distinguished  by  a  paper  label. 
The  edition  of  Byron's  works  in  seventeen  vol- 
umes published  in  1833  is  supposed  to  have 
been  the  first  work  issued  without  the  paper 
label,  and  with  the  title  printed  in  gold  on  the 
backs  of  the  books ;  but  certain  volumes  of  a 
series  of  "  Oxford  English  Classics "  may  per- 
haps have  preceded   this  "  Byron." 


Desig-ned  Dy  Hugh  Thomso 


Published  by  Macmillan  Si  Co, 
"  PRIDE  AND    PREJUDICE."      BY  JANE  AUSTEN. 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.       187 

Stamping  was  probably  done  by  a  handpress, 
such  as  British  binders  kept  ready  to  impress 
on  the  sides  of  leather-covered  volumes  the 
broad  block  with  the  owner's  arms.  From  this 
"  arming-press,"  as  it  was  called,  has  been 
evolved  by  slow  degrees  the  powerful  and 
rapid  machinery  of  the  modern  bindery.  Mur- 
ray's "  Family  Library "  was  probably  the  first 
series  on  which  the  title  was  printed  with 
ordinary  ink.  Then  came,  in  1832,  Charles 
Knight's  "Penny  Magazine,"  and,  in  1833,  his 
"  Penny  Cyclopaedia,"  the  successive  volumes 
of  which  were  bound  by  Archibald  Leighton 
in  stamped  cloth.  Mr.  Wheatley  says  that  at 
first  the  cloth  was  stamped  before  it  was  put 
on  the  boards,  a  proceeding  which  proved 
unsatisfactory  from  the  beginning,  so  the 
boards  were  covered  with  cloth,  which  was 
then  stamped. 

Thereafter  the  art  speedily  improved.  The 
cloth  was  dyed  to  any  desired  colour;  and  it 
was  run  through  rollers  to  give  it  any  de- 
sired grain  or  texture.  The  old-fashioned  arm- 
ing-press   was    modified    and     made     stronger; 


1 88        Bookbi)idings  Old  and  New. 

and  steam  was  swiftly  substituted  for  foot- 
power.  Subsequent  improvements  enabled  the 
pattern  to  be  imprinted  on  the  side  and  back 
of   the  book    in    as    many  colours    as    an    artist 


Designed  by  Harold  B.  Shetwin  (the  Figure  by  J.  L.  Kiplmgj. 

Published  by  D.  Appleton  &  Co. 

"MANY   INVENTIONS,"   BY   RUDYARD   KIPLING. 


could  use  to  advantage  or  the  publisher  was 
willing  to  pay  for.  And  the  work  can  be 
done  with  extraordinary  speed ;  it  is  no 
unusual    thing    now  for   a  bindery   to   turn   out 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.       1 89 

several     thousand     copies    of    a    book    in    the 
course  of  twenty-four  hours. 

Here  we  come  to  the  essential  difference 
between  bookbinding  by  hand  and  bookbind- 
ing  by   machinery.     In    artistic   hand-work   the 


Designed  by  Margaret  N.  Armstrong. 

Published  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 

EVENING   TALES,"    BY  JOEL   CHANDLER   HARRIS. 


!? 


book  is  bound  in  leather  and  then  decorated. 
In  edition  work  the  cloth  case  is  made  and 
decorated  apart  from  the  book  itself,  which 
is  afterward  fastened  in.  The  former  is  a 
slow    process,    and   in    its   higher   manifestations 


IQO 


Bookbiiidiup-s  Old  mid  New. 


it  is  an  art.  The  latter  is  a  rapid  process, 
and  it  is  wholly  mechanical,  except  in  so  far 
as  the  designer  of  the  stamp  is  concerned. 
And  therefore  it  is  on  the  designer  of  the 
stamp    that    the   duty   lies    of    making   beautiful 


Designed  by  D.  S.  Maccoll.     Published  by  T.  Fisher  Unw'n,  London. 
"GREEK  VASE   PAINTINGS,"   BY   D.  S.  MACCOLL  AND  J.  E.  HARRISON. 

the     books    demanded     by     our     modern     and 
democratic  civilization. 

In  Great  Britain  those  who  were  called 
upon  to  invent  ornament  for  the  outside  of 
clothbound    books    were    free     from    the     disad- 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        191 

vantages  under  which  their  fellow-labourers  in 
France  were  placed.  In  France  there  still 
lingered  the  dominating  influence  of  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  great  bibliopegic  artists  of  the 
past,  and  there  was  pressure  on  the  designer 
to  devise  a  decoration  which  should  make  his 
machine-made  cloth  cover  look  like  the  slowly 
tooled  leather  of  a  book  bound  by  hand.  In 
Eng-land  where  the  solid  cloth-casincr  was 
hailed  as  a  manifest  improvement  on  the 
flimsy  paper-boards  which  had  immediately 
preceded  it,  there  existed  no  such  pressure, 
for  no  one  seemed  to  see  any  necessary  con- 
nection between  the  new  cloth-work  and  the 
old  artistic  leather-work.  So  the  designers 
were  at  liberty  to  develop  a  new  form  of 
decoration  suitable  to  the  new  conditions.  In 
this  endeavour  they  have  been  unexpectedly 
successful ;  indeed,  there  is  hardly  any  form 
of  modern  decorative  art  which  has  achieved 
its  aim  more  satisfactorily.  One  might  hazard 
the  suggestion  that  there  has  been  less  copy- 
ing and  less  conventionality,  more  inventiveness 
and  greater   appropriateness,  in  the   commercial 


192        Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

bindings  of  England  and  America  during  the 
past  thirty  years  than  in  the  avowedly  artistic 
"  extra  "  bindinsr. 

Of  course  there  have  been  countless  mil- 
lions of  tomes  disfigured  by  hideous  covers ; 
and  of  course  everv  one  of  us  can  recall  cloth 
cases  which  were  the  epitome  of  everything 
they  should  not  be.  But  a  selection  of  ma- 
chine-made covers  most  pleasing  to  the  trained 
taste  is  equally  easy.  When  Thoreau  bought 
back  the  many  unsold  copies  of  his  first  book, 
"  A  Week  on  the  Concord  and  Merrimac 
Rivers,"  remarking  with  characteristic  humour 
that  he  had  now  a  librar}^  of  nearly  nine 
hundred  volumes,  more  than  seven  hundred 
of  which  he  had  written  himself,  he  had  added 
to  his  collection  books  probably  quite  as  appro- 
priately bound  as  those  which  he  owned  before. 
No  doubt  if  he  could  see  the  neat  attire  his 
"  Walden "  wears  now  that  it  is  included  in 
the  trim  and  tasteful  Riverside  Aldine  Series, 
Thoreau  would  acknowledge  that  he  could  ask 
no  fitter  garb  for  his  offspring.  Nor  could 
there    be    anything   more    modestly   satisfactory 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.  193 

than     the     maidenly     simpHcity    of     the  httle 

tomes    in    this    series,    with    their   smooth  blue 

cloth,    with     their    chaste    lettering,    and  with 


Designed  by  Alice  E.  Morse.     Published  by  the  Century  Co. 
'•THE  CHATELAINE  OF  LA  TRINITE,"   BY  HENRY   B.   FULLER,      1  &  •  "^ 

the  golden  anchor  of  Aldus  —  a  hopeful  emblem 
of  good  books  yet  to  come. 

In    comparing  many  modern    books  to  select 
illustrations    and    examples    for    this    paper,     I 


1 94       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

have  been  led  to  the  conclusion  that  there 
is  more  thought  given  to  book-decoration  in 
the      United     States    than    in    Great     Britain. 


Designed  by  Hugh  Thomson.     Published  by  Kegan  Paul,  Trench,  Triibner  &  Co.,  London. 
"  THE  BALLAD  OF  BEAU  BROCADE,"   BY  AUSTIN  DOBSON. 


There  are  not  a  few  beautiful  book-covers  to 
be  found  in  the  shops  of  British  booksellers, 
but  not  so  many,  I  venture  to  think,  as  might 
be   collected   from    American   publishers.     And 


195 


Designed  by  Laurence  Housnnan.  Published  by  Macm'llan  &  Co. 

"GOPLIN   MARKET."      BY  CHRISTINA   ROSSETTI. 

197 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        199 

the  reason  of  this,  I  take  it,  is  partly  that  the 
British  are  borrowers  of  new  books  rather 
than  buyers,  and  partly  that  the  British  still 
desire  to  have  the  books  worth  ownino-  bound 
finally  in  leather,  and  they  therefore  still  look 
upon  the  cloth  case  as  merely  a  temporary 
convenience.  The  American  reader,  for  the 
most  part,  accepts  the  cloth  binding"  as  a  per- 
manency ;  and  the  American  publisher  is  moved, 
therefore,  to  expend  more  time  and  attention 
on  the  decoration  of  the  books  he  offers  for 
sale. 

Consider,  for  example,  the  gaudy  cover  which 
the  British  publisher  put  on  Mr.  Du  Chaillu's 
"  Land  of  the  Midnight  Sun,"  and  compare  it 
with  that  prepared  by  Mr.  E.  A.  Abbey  for 
the  American  edition.  A  true  book-lover  would 
be  in  haste  to  get  Mr.  Du  Chaillu's  entertain- 
ing work  out  of  the  British  cloth  case ;  but  he 
would  feel  it  absurd  to  wish  to  rebind  a  copy 
adorned  with  Mr.  Abbey's  cover.  He  would 
be  ready  to  echo  Hawthorne's  protest  against 
those  who  "strip  off  the  real  skin  of  a  book 
to  put  it  into  fine  clothes." 


200       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

Again,  take  Mr.  Vedder's  remarkable  edition 
of  Fitzgerald's  "  Rubaiyat  of  Omar  Khayyam," 
for  which  the  artist  designed  the  cover-stamp. 
To  rcbind  this  folio,  even  in  the  most  sumptu- 
ous crushed  levant,  is  to  deprive  one's  self 
of  not  the  least  interesting  of  the  illustrations 
by  which  the  American  painter  has  interpreted 
the  Persian  poet.  And  what  could  be  more 
ingenious  or  more  characteristic  than  the  Dutch 
tile  which  is  seemingly  set  into  the  golden 
cover  of  the  "  Sketching  Rambles  in  Holland " 
of  Mr,  George  H.  Boughton  and  Mr.  E.  A. 
Abbey } 

Simplicity  is  an  ingredient  of  dignity,  and 
there  are  book-lovers  who  love  simplicity  above 
all  things,  having  a  Jansenist  taste  even  in 
cloth  bindings.  There  is  nothing  noisy  or 
fussy  in  the  cover  of  Mr.  Harold  Frederic's 
"  In  the  Valley,"  due  to  the  pencil  of  Mr. 
Harold  Magonigle,  or  in  the  cover  of  Mr. 
Aldrich's  "  Sisters'  Tragedy,"  with  its  severe 
and  yet  elegant  myrtle  wreath  designed  by 
Mrs.  Whitman.  To  Mrs.  Whitman  also  is 
due    the   credit   for    the    tea-leaf   border    of    Dr. 


Published  by  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co. 
"RUBAIYAT   Ol-'   OMAR    KHAYYAM."      ' 
20 1 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.       203 

Holmes's  "  Over  the  Tea-cups  "  with  its  vigor- 
ous lettering,  and  its  subordinate  teapot  of  a 
fashion  now  gone  by.  None  of  Mrs.  Whit- 
man's book-covers  are  frivolous  or  finicky  ;  they 
have  always  reserve  and  purity. 

Yet  decorations  of  this  chaste  severity  are 
not  alone  on  our  book-shelves ;  and  there  are 
not  a  few  devised  on  other  principles  and 
compounded  in  another  fashion.  Some  satis- 
faction there  is  in  finding  an  old  German 
woodcut  border  doing  duty  on  the  cover  of 
Mr.  Woodberry's  "  History  of  Wood  Engrav- 
ing," or  in  observing  the  apt  use  of  the 
orange  with  its  full  fruit  and  its  green  leaves 
as  they  are  wreathed  in  the  arabesques  of 
the  medallions  which  adorn  the  back  and 
side  of  Mr.  Lafcadio  Hearn's  "  Two  Years  in 
the  French  West  Indies,"  and  which  were 
designed  by  Miss  Alice  E.  Morse,  with  a  full 
understanding  of  the  value  of  colour  on  a  book- 
cover,  and  an  apt  appreciation  of  the  technical 
means  whereby  it  is  best  to  be  attained. 

It  is  essential  to  good  decorative  design,  what- 
ever its   kind,  whether  it   be  a   book-cover  or  a 


204        Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

wall-paper,  a  carpet  or  a  tapestry,  a  carved 
panel  or  an  inlaid  floor,  that  the  artist  shall 
recognize  technical  limitations,  shall  preserve 
technical  possibilities,  and  shall  be  in  sym- 
pathy with  the  materials  employed.  The  dec- 
orative artist  must  be  swift  to  seize  that  one 
of  the  processes  presenting  themselves  which 
will  best  suit  his  immediate  object.  "  One 
reason  for  our  modern  failures  lies  in  the 
multitude  of  our  facilities,"  suggests  Mr.  Lewis 
F.  Day  in  his  little  book  on  the  "  Application 
of  Ornament,"  and  he  adds  that  "  the  secret 
of  the  ancient  triumphs  is  often  in  the  sim- 
plicity of  the  workman's  resources."  Where  a 
man  has  but  a  single  tool,  he  must  perforce 
devise  ornament  which  that  single  tool  can 
accomplish,  or  else  go  without  ornament  alto- 
gether. Out  of  the  struggle  comes  strength. 
When  we  see  the  rather  violently  polychro- 
matic cover  which  that  most  accomplished 
artist  Jules  Jacquemart  placed  on  the  book 
on  "  La  Ceramique "  illustrated  by  him,  we 
cannot  but  wonder  whether  he  would  not 
have    given    us    something    quieter     and    more 


Designed  by  G.  A.  Laundy. 

"HALF   HOURS   WITH   AN   OLU   GOLl'liR." 
201; 


Publishud  by  George  Bell  and  Sons. 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        207 

beautiful  if  the  resources  of  modern  colour- 
printing  had  not  been  ready  to  his  hand. 
And  yet,  nothing  venture,  nothing  have :  the 
decorative  artist,  if  he  wishes  to  get  outside 
the  little  circle  of  every-day  banality,  must 
try    the    hazard   of    new   fortunes    as    often   and 


Designed  by  Harold  B.  Sherwin.     Published  by  the  Cf>n-tury  Co.      I  il'i' 
PANEL   FROM   BACK  AND   COVER   OF   "OLD   ITALIAN   MASTERS." 

as  boldly  as  the  explorer  or  the  soldier.  Often 
he  will  discover  strange  countries  fair  to  see, 
which  he  will  annex  forthwith. 

Sometimes  the  search  for  novelty  is  re- 
warded only  by  a  chance  fantasticality.  A 
volume     of    ghost-stories    by    Mrs,    Molesworth 


2oS        Bookbi/KiliNgs  Old  and  New. 

liad  a  plain  cloth  cover,  from  the  side  of 
which,  as  one  gazed  at  it,  there  seemed  sud- 
denly to  start  a  shadowy  figure  —  due  to  a 
stamp  which  did  no  more  than  remove  the 
glaze  of  the  calico,  not  changing  its  colour. 
Colonel  Norton's  glossary  of  "  Political  Ameri- 
canisms" was  covered  with  a  dark-blue  cloth 
turned  inside  out,  and  exposing  a  blue-gray 
grain,  on  which  there  was  printed,  in  the 
original  dark  blue,  the  title,  set  off  by  the 
figure  of  the  fearsome  gerrymander.  But 
these  are  trifles  —  the  casual  freaks  of  com- 
mercial bibliopegy. 


III. 

THE    SEARCH    FOR    NOVELTY. 

More  fertile  is  the  effort  to  find  special 
cloths  for  special  books,  to  enlarge  the  num- 
ber of  fabrics  from  which  the  binder  may 
choose.  The  very  step  in  advance  which  M. 
Octave  Uzanne  urged  upon  the  artistic  book- 
binders of  France  has  been  taken  by  the 
commercial  bookbinders  of  America ;  and  we 
are  constantly  seeing  new  stuffs  impressed 
into  the  service.  M.  Uzanne  claims  the  in- 
vention of  the  cartonnage  a  la  Pompadour, 
the  clothing  of  a  light  and  lively  tale  of  the 
eighteenth  century  in  a  brocade  or  a  damask 
of  the  period.  This  is  almost  exactly  what 
a  publisher  in  Boston  did  when  he  sent  forth 
Mrs.  Higginson's  "  Princess  of  Java,"  clad  in 
the  cotton  which  the  Javanese  wear.  It  was 
what  a  publisher  in  New  York  did  when  he 
sent  forth  Mr.  Lafcadio  Hearn's  ''  Youma," 
p  209 


2 lo       Bookbindings  Old  and  New, 

the  story  of  a  slave,  covered  with  the  sim- 
ple fabric  that  slaves  dress  in.  It  was  what 
a  London  publisher  did  when  he  sent  forth 
a  tiny  little  tome  of  old-time  fashions, 
"  Our  Grandmothers'  Gowns,"  bound  with  the 
chintzes  and  calicoes  of  bygone  days. 

The  American  edition  of  Charles  Lamb's 
"  Poetry  for  Children "  was  issued  by  Messrs, 
Charles  Scribner's  Sons  in  a  half-binding  of 
some  woven  material  such  as  is  used  in  the 
nursery  for  the  pinafores  of  childhood  ;  and  the 
same  publisher  covered  Mr.  Riis's  stimulating 
account  of  "  How  the  Other  Half  Lives,"  with 
a  stuff  very  like  that  from  which  the  labourer's 
overalls  are  made,  a  most  appropriate  garment 
for  a  book  like  Mr,  Riis's.  Messrs.  Houghton, 
Mifflin  &  Co.  have  made  experiment  of  a  more 
aesthetic  fabric,  Persian  silk;  they  used  it  for 
the  back  of  Miss  Jewett's  "  Strangers  and 
Wayfarers,"  on  which  it  contrasted  boldly  with 
the  white  side  bearing  Mrs.  Whitman's  deco- 
rative lettering  imprinted  in  the  colour  of  the 
silk ;  and  they  employed  it  again  for  Brown- 
ing's latest    volume    of   poems,    "  Asolando,"   in 


Bookbindings  Old  mid  New.       2 1 1 


this  case  covering  the  whole  book,  one  side 
of  which  was  further  decorated  by  a  dignified 
panel  and  border  of  Mrs.  Whitman's  design- 
ing. I  know  of  no  recent  commercial  binding 
more  satisfactory    than    this,  or    more   adequate 


%/  ;,i  A,S  I  !^^ 


J.bl'^" 


Ui 


yc 


,^      .TSiV 


1,^ -y -S:  J  y  J .  j:..    -^'.     -^    '^J-   -^   -^    ~J-   -^J? ...-<■»; 

A  copy  of  the  sampler  worked  by  the  "girl."      Lettered  by  A.  Hilgen- 

reiner,  die-cutter.     Published  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons,    [ii^'f     (.    O-'i—^^ 

"A  GIRL'S  LIFE  8o  YEARS  AGO,"   BY   ELIZA  SOUTHGATE  BOWNE.       ^  "^ '- 

to   its  purpose,  the  appropriate   sheathing    of    a 
poet's  last  words. 

This    same    house    published    the    "  Book    of 
the   Tile  Club,"  a  portly  folio  bound  in  sturdy 


2 1 2        Bookbindings  Old  and  Xew. 

canvas — a  material  already  used  by  Mr.  Mar- 
vin (for  Messrs.  Charles  Scribner's  Sons)  in 
the  cover  of  "  A  Girl's  Life  So  Years  Aero " 
(whereon  the  title  was  printed  in  imitation 
of  a  child's  sampler,  a  pleasant  fantasy). 
The  "  Book  of  the  Tile  Club ''  was  altogether 
a  more  imposing  tome,  with  its  delightfully 
decorative  side-stamp  by  Mr.  Stanford  White, 
with  its  prominent  (not  to  call  them  aggres- 
sive) ner\'es  across  the  back,  with  its  brass- 
bound  corners,  with  every  page  separately  and 
securely  mounted  on  a  linen  guard,  and  with 
its  personal  and  peculiar  end-papers  wherein 
we  can  trace  the  portraits  or  insignia  of  the 
Tilers,  with  even,'  one  his  7iom  de  giierre. 
"  The  Book  of  the  Tile  Club "  was  aimed 
high ;  and  it  hit  its  mark  fairly  and  squarely 
in  the  bull's  eye. 

End-papers  of  special  design  are  among  the 
refinements  of  book-making,  which  might  be 
seen  oftener  than  they  are  when  publishers  are 
giving  time  and  thought  to  the  preparation  of 
an  exceptional  volume.  Those  in  the  Grolier 
Club  edition  of  the  "  Philobiblon  "  were  admirably 


Stanford  Vi'h  te. 


'•  A  BOOK  OF  THE  TILE  CLUB.' 
21  ; 


Published  by  Houghton,  Mifflin  &.  Co. 


ItU 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        215 

in  keeping  with  the  text.  They  may  even  be 
made  useful,  as  they  were  in  Dr.  Eggleston's 
histories  of  the  United  States,  where  they  are 
maps.  But  supplementary  delicacies  of  this  sort 
can  be  expected  only  when,  in  the  phrase  of  the 
cockney  art-critic,  "  the  book  is  illustrated  by  the 
celebrated   French  artist  De  Luxe." 

Still  rarer  is  another  ancillary  adornment  to 
be  found  in  certain  proof  copies  of  Mr.  W.  J. 
Loftie's  "  Kensington :  Picturesque  and  Histori- 
cal." These,  it  was  announced  by  the  publisher, 
would  "  have  painted  in  water-colours  on  the 
front,  under  the  gilt  edges  of  the  leaves,  a  couple 
of  Kensington  views,  which,  until  the  leaves  are 
bent  back  at  an  angle,  will  be  invisible."  In  Mr. 
S.  P.  Avery's  copy  of  the  Grolier  Club  edition  of 
Irving's  "  Knickerbocker,"  the  water-colours  un- 
der the  gilt  of  the  fore-edge  are  the  work  of 
Mr.  G.  H.  Boughton.  But  this  is  an  excur- 
sus. There  are  so  many  byways  of  booklore 
that  the  book-lover  can  hardly  help  digressing 
occasionally. 


IV. 

STAMPED    LEATHER. 

From  the  beginning  commercial  binding   has 

concerned  itself  chiefly  with  cloth,  with  but  an 

occasional  venture  with  other  fabrics,  —  hnen,  or 

dimity,  or  silk.     The  few  copies  of  certain  single 

books,  and  of  full  sets  of  certain  authors,  which 

publishers  now  and  again  advertise  as  ready  in 

half-calf,    in    tree-calf,   or   in    crushed    levant-mo- 

rocco  are  not  really  commercial  bindings ;   they 

are  more  or  less  artistic  bindings  done  chiefly  by 

hand,  but    done  wholesale.      Generally   they  are 

to  be  avoided  by  all  who  hope  to  see  their  books 

really  well  bound,  for  they  lack  the  loving  care 

with  which  a  conscientious  craftsman  treats  the 

single  volume  intrusted  to  him  to  bind  as  best  he 

can ;  and    they    are   also  without    the   merits   of 

another    sort  which   we   find  in    the  best   cloth 

coverings.     Sometimes,  of  course,  the  sets  which 

publishers  offer  in  leather  are  honestly  forwarded 

216 


Designed  by  Stanford  White.  Published  by  the  Century  Co. 

"THE  CENTURY    DICTIONARY." 


217 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        2 1  g 

and  thoroughly  finished :  but  for  the  most  part 
they  are  hasty  and  soulless. 

To  the  true  book-lover's  eye  no  crushed 
levant  can  be  too  fine  or  too  magnificent  for  the 
book  he  truly  loves  : 

In  red  morocco  drest  he  loves  to  boast, 

The  bloody  murder,  or  the  yelling  ghost : 

Or  dismal  ballads,  sung  to  crowds  of  old, 

Now  cheaply  bought  for  thrice  their  weight  in  gold. 

Knowing  this,  some  American  publishers  have 
issued  the  whole  edition  of  certain  books  bound 
in  full  leather,  and  with  the  covers  stamped  in 
appropriate  designs.  Here  we  have  the  methods 
of  the  best  cloth-binding  applied  to  the  best 
material,  leather.  These  books  are  as  carefully 
forwarded  and  finished  as  though  they  were 
hand-work ;  indeed,  almost  the  only  objection 
the  purist  might  make  against  them  would  be 
the  saw-cuts  in  the  back ;  and  this  objection  is 
minimized  by  the  fact  that  the  volume  is  now 
permanently  clothed,  and  that  there  will  there- 
fore be  no  need  to   rebind  it. 

Although  plates  were  engraved  even  in  the 
fifteenth  century   to  stamp  the   sides   of   leather- 


220       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

bound  books,  the  practice  had  long  ceased  except 
so  far  as  dictionaries,  prayer-books,  and  bibles 
were  concerned ;  and  even  in  its  palmiest  days 
the  plate  was  an  imitation  of  a  hand-tooled 
side,  and  not  an  orio-inal  desio;n  of  a  nature 
appropriate    to     the  individual  book.      It    is  the 


<K 


Designed  by  George  Wharton  Edwards.      Published  by  the  Century  Co. 
"THUMB-NAIL   SKETCHES,"    BY   GEORGE    WHARTON    EDWARDS. 

quality  of  modern  commercial  bookbinding 
that  it  has  separated  itself  wholly  from  the 
traditions  of  hand-tooling,  and  that  it  stands 
on  its  own  merits.  Consider  the  massive 
and  substantial  solidity  of  the  side-stamp 
Mr.    Stanford    White     designed    for    the    "  Cen- 


Designed  by  Howard  Pyle.  Published  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 

"THE    MERRY  ADVENTURES   OF   ROBIN   HOOD,"   BY   HOWARD   PYLE.  (^S5 

221 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.       223 

tury  Dictionary,"  and  note  how  different  it 
is  in  its  vigorous  firmness  from  even  the  most 
elaborate  hand-toohng.  Technically,  this  dic- 
tionary cover  is  most  interesting,  for  the  design 
is  impressed  on  damp  sheepskin  by  a  heated 
plate,  which  changes  the  tone  of  the  leather, 
thus  imparting  to  the  decoration  colour  as  well 
as    relief. 

Although  I  recall  the  stamped  leather  cover 
of  the  photolithographic  facsimile  of  the  first 
folio  of  Shakspere,  —  blind-tooled  in  accordance 
with  Teutonic  tradition,  —  I  think  that  it  is  only 
within  the  past  few  years,  and  here  in  the  United 
States,  that  publishers  have  made  a  practice  of 
issuing  the  whole  edition  of  certain  beautiful 
books  bound  in  leather  stamped  by  machinery 
as  though  it  were  cloth.  Mr.  Howard  Pyle's  re- 
setting of  "  Robin  Hood  "  was  issued  by  Messrs. 
Charles  Scribner's  Son's  in  1883  with  a  leather 
cover  embossed  with  a  Dureresque  design  by 
the  artist-author.  Then  came  the  lovely  volumes 
illustrated  by  Mr.  E.  A.  Abbey  with  the  collab- 
oration of  Mr.  Alfred  Parsons,  and  published 
by  Messrs.  Harper  &  Brothers.     For  Goldsmith's 


224       Boo/cd/ //(//// OS  Old  and  New. 

"She  Stoops  to  Conquer,"  an  ample  folio,  Mr. 
Stanford  White  devised  a  cover  decoration, 
modern,  tasteful,  and  graceful ;  a  border  sur- 
rounded the  two  sides  and  the  back,  here  treated 
as  if  they  were  a  single  plane  surface  (although 
outlined  straps  crossed  the  back);  and  a  cartouche 
on  the  side  held  the  title  of  the  work  and  the 
name  of  the  artist  who  had  made  the  sprightly 
aad  refined  drawings  that  illustrated  it.  The 
gold  of  the  letterinar  was  of  a  different  tone  from 
the  gold  of  the  decorative  design  ;  and  by  another 
mechanical  device  the  filleted  border  was  filled 
by  a  ribbed  surface, 

Quite  as  effective  as  this,  although  simpler, 
was  the  cover  of  "  The  Quiet  Life "  of  Messrs, 
Abbey  and  Parsons,  with  its  powder  of 
flowers,  also  due  to  the  ingenuity  of  Mr. 
White.  From  the  same  publishers  have  since 
come  the  "  Old  Songs "  by  the  same  illustra- 
tors, the  "Sonnets  by  William  Wordsworth," 
with  drawings  by  Mr.  Parsons  alone,  and 
"  The  Boyhood  of  Christ,"  of  General  Lew 
Wallace,  the  covers  of  which  were  all  con- 
ceived in  the  same    spirit    as    the    two    earlier 


225 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        227 

books,  although  they  lacked  something  of  the 
distinction  Mr.  White  gave  to  his  handiwork. 
For  the  edition  of  Longfellow's  "  Hiawatha," 
to  the  illustrating  of  which  Mr.  Frederic  Rem- 
ington brought  his  extraordinary  knowledge  of 
Indian  manners  and  modes  of  thought,  the 
publishers,  Messrs.  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co., 
prepared  a  most  appropriate  cover  of  buck- 
skin, and  on  the  rough,  brown-red  surface  of 
this  Mrs.  Whitman's  side-stamp  stood  out  brill- 
iantly. So  far  as  I  know,  buckskin  had  not 
before  been  used  in  bookbinding  in  America, 
although  it  seems  to  be  a  fit  material  to 
clothe  the  many  books  of  frontier  life :  the  late 
Edouard  Fournier  records  that  many  of  the 
old  monkish  bindings  were  of  deerskin  —  so, 
as  usual,  the  novelty  turns  out  to  be  an 
antiquity. 

Vellum,  which  was  once  a  favourite  material 
with  the  old  bookbinders,  has  gone  out  of  use 
almost  everywhere  except  in  Italy.  It  was 
employed  in  covering  the  "  Autobiography  of 
Joseph  Jefferson,"  for  which  Mr.  George 
Wharton    Edwards   designed  a  rich   and    ingen- 


228       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

ious  Renascence  side-stamp  to  be  embossed  on 
the  yielding  leather.  Vellum  was  also  utilized 
bv  the  Grolier  Club  to  clothe  its  unequalled 
edition  of  the  "  Philobiblon,"  but  in  this  case 
the  only  decoration  was  the  seal  of  the  good 
Bishop  of  Bury. 

Here  I  come  to  the  end  of  my  notes  on 
the  art  of  commercial  bookbinding,  an  art 
which,  in  this  mechanic  age,  is  perhaps  most 
flourishing  in  this  country  of  inventive 
mechanics.  It  is  one  of  the  most  important 
forms  of  household  art  — ■  of  decorative  art. 
Properly  understood,  and  intelligently  prac- 
tised, it  is  capable  of  educating  the  taste  even 
of  the  thoughtless,  and  of  giving  keen  enjoy- 
ment to  those  who  love  books  for  their  own 
sake.  There  needs  no  argument  to  prove  that 
it  is  not  an  art  to  despise  which  has  called 
forth  the  energy  of  M.  Giacomelli  and  Jules 
Jacquemart,  of  Mr.  William  Morris  and  Mr. 
Walter  Crane,  of  Mr.  E.  A.  Abbey,  Mr.  Elihu 
Vedder,  and  Mr.  Howard  Pyle,  of  Mr.  Stan- 
ford White  and   Mrs.  Wliitman. 


Designed  by  J.  A.  Schweinfurth.     Published  by  Little,  Brown  &  Co. 

"  THE  OREGON  TRAIL,"   13Y   FRAHCIS   PARKMAN.         '.  tfty 
229 


BOOKS    IN    PAPER-COVERS. 


BOOKS    IN    PAPER-COVERS. 


I. 

THE    SUMMER    CLOTHES    OF    FICTION. 

When  the  soliloquizer  in  the  Spanish  Cloister 
wished  to  consign  Brother  Laurence,  his  soul's 
abhorrence,  to  sudden  and  certain  damnation, 
he  determined  to  place  within  his  enemy's 
reach  his  "  scrofulous  French  novel,"  to  look 
at  which  is  the  ruin  of  the  soul.  Although  the 
poet  does  not  so  declare  it  in  as  many  words, 
I  have  always  believed  that  this  scrofulous 
French  novel  was  loosely  clad  in  a  cover  of 
yellow  paper,  flimsy  beyond  question,  and  as 
easily  destroyable  as  the  soul  of  Brother  Lau- 
rence. 

Whether  it  be  due  to  the  French  fiction 
which  the  British  bard  declared  to  be  afflicted 
with  the  king's  evil,  or  whether  it  be  due  to  our 


234        Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

American  stories,  sentimental  and  adventurous, 
of  the  kind  familiar  since  the  war  as  "dime 
novels,"  or  whether  it  be  due  to  some  more 
recondite  cause,  there  is  no  denying  the  fact 
that  "  yellow-covered  literature "  is  not  in  good 
odour  with  book-lovers.  Even  the  collector  who 
nowadays  despises  nothing,  be  it  never  so 
humble,  treats  with  contempt  volumes  stitched 
into  paper-covers  —  mere  h'ocJntres,  as  the 
French  call  them.  So  far  as  I  know,  not  any 
book-lover  is  now  gathering  the  books  of  all 
sorts  which  go  forth  to  swift  oblivion  guarded 
against  hard  usage  only  by  a  wrapper  of  paper. 
There  are  collectors  of  book-plates,  of  postage- 
stamps,  of  pictorial  posters,  but  I  have  never 
heard  of  a  collector  of  paper-covers.  And  yet, 
as  the  paper-cover  must  needs  be  the  work  of 
a  typographer  or  of  a  colour-printer,  of  a  lithog- 
rapher or  of  a  designer  in  black  and  white, 
there  seems  to  be  no  reason  why  it  should  be 
scorned  when  all  else  is  cherished.  The  reasons 
for  this  neglect  are  not  easy  to  declare  when 
we  consider  the  many  wrappers  prepared  for 
magazines,   for   catalogues,   for    novels,    and    for 


No.  v.] 


AUGUST,  1870.  [Price  One  Shilling. 


LONDON:   CHAPMAN  &  HALL,  193,  PICCADILLY. 


Advertisements  to  be  sent  to  the  Publi  shers  ana  ADAMS  &  FRANCIS,  59,  Fleet  Street  E.O. 
(.»»  righto;  Trordation  is  reicrvei-l 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        237 

children's  books,  by  artists  like  Messrs.  Elihu 
Vedder  and  Stanford  White,  Will  H.  Low  and 
Joseph  Pennell,  Walter  Crane  and  Randolph 
Caldecott,  Luc  Olivier  Merson,  Carloz  Schwabe 
and  Jules  Cheret. 

In  one  of  the  pleasantest  essays  of  "  As 
we  were  saying,"  Mr.  Warner  discusses  the 
"  Clothes  of  Fiction,"  and  remarks  on  the  sum- 
mer and  the  winter  apparel  of  romance.  "  As 
certainly  as  the  birds  appear  comes  the  crop 
of  summer  novels,  fluttering  down  upon  the 
stalls,  in  procession  through  the  railway  trains, 
littering  the  drawing-room  tables,  in  light  paper- 
covers,  ornamented  attractively  in  colours  and 
fanciful  designs,  as  welcome  and  grateful  as 
the  girls  in  muslin.  ...  In  winter  we  pre- 
fer the  boards  and  the  rich,  heavy  binding, 
however  light  the  tale  may  be ;  but  in  the 
summer,  though  the  fiction  be  as  grave  and 
tragic  as  wandering  love  and  bankruptcy,  we 
would  have  it  come  to  us  lightly  clad  —  out 
of  stays,  as  it  were."  The  publishers  under- 
stand this  desire  of  the  public,  and  they  send 
forth    their    summer    novels    in    loosely    fitting 


238        Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

garments  —  fancy    flannel    shirts,    so    to    speak, 
and  striped  blazers. 

Sometimes,  it  may  be,  the  outside  is 
adorned  with  an  illustration  taken  from  the 
inside  of  the  book,  as  were  Mr.  Janvier's 
"  Uncle  of  an  Angel,"  made  attractive  by  Mr. 
Smedley's  alluring  picture  of  Narragansett  Pier, 
and  M.  Daudet's  "  L'Immortel,"  brightened 
by  M.  Rossi's  pert  ballet  dancer.  Sometimes 
the  wrapper  is  treated  with  decorative  sobriety, 
as  was  Mr.  Howells's  "  Hazard  of  New  Fort- 
unes," with  its  sombre  symbol  of  fate.  Some- 
times, indeed,  the  outside  cover  is  merely  an 
external  title-page,  having  a  chaste  typographic 
beauty  quite  distinct  from  the  pictorial  and 
from  the  decorative :  such,  for  example,  is  the 
stiff  paper  casing  of  Mr.  De  Vinne's  "  Plantin 
and  the  Plantin-Moretus  Museum,"  as  it  was 
sent  forth  by  the  Grolier  Club.  But  this  typo- 
graphic severity  would  seem  a  little  austere, 
perhaps,  if  applied  to  a  summer  novel :  yet  it  is 
thus  that  the  popular  Scribner  yellow-covered 
series  is  attired.  Akin  to  this,  and  yet  not 
wholly    similar,    are    the    side-stamps    designed 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 


239 


by  Mr.  Stanford  White  and  by  Mr.  Francis 
Lathrop  for  the  successive  collections  of  proofs 
from  the  Century  magazine. 

In    England    the    railway    novel    is    incased 
in  boards  sheathed  with  paper;  and   this   cover 


•PROOFS- 

FRPM  SCKIBNERS  MoNTHLY- 

•AND-S"  NICHOLAS' 


•  SECOND' 


■SEKIES- 


.SCRjBNEildr  CO  •  NEW-YOR.K' 

FR.EDEMCK  WAKNE  &  CO -LONDON' 

1881 


DESIGNED   BY    FRANCIS    LATHROF. 


is  adorned  more  often  than  not  with  a  crude 
and  hard  illustration  of  some  scene  in  the 
story,  printed  in  three  colours  generally,  and 
wofuUy    void    of    art    or    charm    of    any    sort. 


240        Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

Mr.  William  Morris  has  reminded  us  that  "  to 
give  people  pleasure  in  the  things  they  must 
perforce  tise,  that  is  the  one  great  office  of 
decoration ;     to    give     people     pleasure     in     the 


P§3-FR0n-SCRIBNER'S^- 
S-MONTHLY-AND-p 
M3-ST-NlCH0LASl^^ 


•THECENTU  RY  •  CO 

■UNiON-SQUARE-NY- 


DESIGNED    BY   STANFORD   WHITE. 


things  they  must  jDerforce  make,  that  is  the 
other  use  of  it."  Possibly  the  man  who 
must  perforce  use  the  ordinary  British  railway 
novels    is    so    demoralized    by    them    that     he 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.       241 

can  take  delight  in  the  staring  and  vulgar 
pictures  on  the  covers  of  these  tales ;  but 
surely  no  man  could  have  found  pleasure  in 
making  anything  so  grotesquely  inartistic. 

Perhaps  the  reason  for  this  stupidly  violent 
lack  of  art  is  to  be  found  in  a  blind  following 
of  a  tradition  established  long  before  the  recent 
revival  of  the  decorative  arts  in  Great  Britain. 
I  have  "A  Comic  Alphabet," designed,  etched, 
and  published  by  George  Cruikshank,  No.  23 
Myddleton  Terrace,  Pentonville,  1837,  the 
paper-cover  of  which  has  a  hint  of  humorous 
suggestion  in  it,  perhaps,  but  which  is  emphati- 
cally empty  and  awkward. 

To  discover  the  immense  advance  made 
by  the  British  in  knowledge  of  the  principles 
of  decoration  and  the  striking  development 
of  their  skill  in  the  application  of  these  prin- 
ciples, it  needs  only  a  setting  of  this  Cruik- 
shank cover  over  against  the  wrapper  designed 
by  Mr.  Walter  Crane  for  the  catalogue  of  the 
Arts  and  Crafts  Exhibition  held  at  the  New 
Gallery  in  London  in  1888.  This  is  indeed  a 
pleasure  to  the  user,  as  it  was  obviously  a  pleas- 


242        Bookbiiidiiigs  Old  and  New. 

lire  to  the  maker.  (To  Mr.  Walter  Crane's 
services  to  children,  also  a  labour  of  love,  I  shall 
return  again.)  Another  admirable  wrapper  made 
in  England  —  although  by  an  American  this 
time  —  is  the  fresh  and  characteristic  cover 
which  Mr,  Joseph  Pennell  devised  for  the 
cheaper  British  edition  of  Mr.  Laurence  Hut- 
ton's  invaluable  "  Literary  Landmarks  of  Lon- 
don." As  quaint  as  Mr.  Pennell's,  and  in  its 
way  as  original,  is  Miss  Armstrong's  sugges- 
tion of  a  daintily  embroidered  napkin  in  which 
was  wrapped  Mrs.  Herrick's  pleasant  advice 
as  to  "  The  Little  Dinner." 

These  designs  of  Mr.  Pennell's  and  Miss 
Armstrong's  were  printed  in  colours ;  and  it  is 
in  colours  that  the  most  attractive  of  recent 
French  paper-covers  have  been  printed,  some- 
times by  one  of  the  more  modern  processes  of 
chromotypography,  and  sometimes  by  the  elder 
method  of  chromolithography.  Here  the  paper- 
cover  of  the  published  book  has  been  influenced 
by  the  extraordinary  development  of  the  pic- 
torial poster  in  France.  Many  of  the  best  of 
the  coloured  wrappers   of    recent   French  books 


'!^ 


•4^ 


^ 


*1  =- 


5! 


.1;;       .  '^ 


^^ 


243 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        245 

have  been  but  pictorial  posters  seen  through 
the  small  end  of  the  opera-glass.  More  than 
once  in  these  cursory  papers  on  various  phases 
of  the  complex  art  of  the  bookbinder  has  there 
been  occasion  to  dwell  upon  the  interdepend- 
ence of  the  arts,  and  upon  their  reflex  action 
one  on  the  other.  And  here  is  another  in- 
stance. The  French  pictorial  poster  was  de- 
veloped by  M.  Jules  Cheret  and  his  followers 
and  rivals  just  in  time  to  be  of  use  to  the  pub- 
lishers who  wished  to  send  forth  their  books 
clad  in  paper  coats  of  many  colours.  The  same 
artists— M.  Cheret,  M.  Grasset,  M.  Willette 
—  were  called  upon,  and  the  book-covers  which 
they  designed  were  conceived  wholly  in  the 
spirit  of  the  pictorial  poster. 


II. 

THE    INFLUENCE    OF    THE    PICTORIAL    POSTER. 

If  "  Post  no  Bills  "  were  the  universal  law  now- 
adays, those  of  us  who  have  the  good  fortune  to 
live  in  Paris  or  in  New  York  would  be  deprived 
of  one  of  the  most  interesting  manifestations  of 
modern  decorative  art.  Perhaps  it  is  not  wholly 
unfair  to  suggest  that  this  nineteenth  century  of 
ours  is  a  day  of  little  things,  and  that  our  silver- 
ware, our  pottery,  our  tiles,  our  wall-paper,  our 
woodcuts,  our  book-covers,  each  in  its  kind,  and 
when  it  is  at  its  best,  are  better  than  our  historic 
painting,  our  heroic  sculpture,  or  our  grandiose 
architecture.  The  minor  arts  have  their  place  in 
the  hierarchy  of  the  beautiful ;  and  more  often 
than  we  are  willing  to  acknowledge,  they  have  a 
charm  of  their  own  and  a  value  likely  to  be  as 
lasting  as  those  of  their  more  pretentious  elder 
sisters.  The  idyls  of  Theocritus  and  the  fig-  | 
urines  from  Tanagra  —  are  these  so  tiny  that  we 
can  afford  to  despise  them  ? 

246 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        2/\.j 

We  are  all  of  us  prone  to  underestimate  the 
value  of  contemporary  labour  when  it  is  bestowed 
on  common  things.  Often  we  fail  altogether  to 
see  the  originality,  the  elegance,  the  freshness, 
—  in  a  word,  the  ar^,  —  of  the  men  who  are  mak- 
ing the  things  which  encompass  us  roundabout. 
Possibly  the  Greek  did  not  consider  the  beauty 
of  the  vase  he  used  daily,  the  form  of  which  is 
a  pure  joy  to  us ;  and  probably  the  Oriental 
worker  at  the  loom  cannot  guess  the  pleasure 
we  shall  take  in  his  subtle  commingling  of  colour 
in  the  wools  of  the  rug  he  is  weaving.  So  it 
is  small  wonder  that  the  pictorial  posters  which 
adorn  our  blank  walls  pass  by  unperceived,  and 
that  we  do  not  care  to  observe  the  skill  which 
has  gone  to  their  making.  Yet  the  recent 
development  of  the  pictorial  poster  in  France 
and  in  America  is  worthy  of  careful  considera- 
tion by  all  who  take  note  of  the  artistic  currents 
of  our  time. 

More  than  once  has  this  or  that  distin- 
guished French  painter  or  architect  stooped 
to  design  a  poster  for  the  play  or  for  the  book 
of    some    friend.       But    for   the    most    part    the 


248       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

posters  of  these  artists  arc  muddled  and  ineffec- 
tive ;  they  lack  the  solid  simplicity  of  motive 
which  is  the  essential  of  a  good  advertisement ; 
they  are  without  the  bold  vigour  of  design 
which  the  poster  demands ;  and  they  are  with- 
out the  compression  and  relief  of  lettering 
which  it  requires.  These  are  qualities  which 
the  ordinary  artist,  not  seeking,  has  not  achieved, 
perhaps  because  he  half  despised  his  task. 
These  are  the  qualities  which  no  one  could 
fail  to  find  in  the  work  of  the  masters  of  the 
poster  in  France,  M.  Jules  Cheret,  M.  Willette, 
M.  Grasset.  In  their  advertisements  we  dis- 
cover a  perfect  understanding  of  the  conditions 
of  this  form  of  pictorial  art. 

The  first  of  these  conditions  is  that  the  poster 
shall  attract  attention  at  all  costs;  and  the  second 
is  that  it  shall  satisfy  the  eye  at  all  hazards. 
Thus  we  see  that  the  poster  may  be  noisy, 
—  and  noisy  it  often  is,  no  doubt,  —  but  it  must 
not  be  violent,  just  as  even  a  brass  band  ought 
ever  to  play  in  tune.  And  the  paper-cover  is 
a  younger  sister  of  the  pictorial  poster.  The 
conditions    under    which    paper-covers    can    be 


Bookbindings  Old  mid  New.        249 

effective  and  accomplish  their  purpose  are  the 
same  as  those  under  which  the  pictorial  poster 
is  restrained. 

Indeed,  the  alliance  between  these  two  forms 
of  chromatic  decoration  had  been  close  for 
some  time.  Certain  of  M.  Cheret's  boldest  and 
most  vigorous  compositions  were  for  the  pur- 
pose of  advertising  new  books  or  new  editions 
—  M.  Robida's  "  Rabelais,"  for  example,  and 
the  "  Three  Musketeers "  of  the  elder  Dumas. 

Perhaps  the  point  of  contact  is  to  be  sought  in 
the  wrappers  for  sheet-music  and  for  the  scores 
of  operas.  The  drawing  prepared  by  M.  Georges 
Clairin  for  M.  Massenet's  opera  "  Le  Cid "  had 
been  enlarged  to  serve  as  a  poster;  and  in 
like  manner  M.  Willette's  delightfully  charac- 
teristic design  of  the  old  and  the  young  Pierrots 
for  the  witty  and  pathetic  pantomime  of  "  L'En- 
fant  Prodigue  "  did  double  duty. 

Any  one  who  has  had  the  good  fortune  of 
late  to  spend  even  twenty-four  hours  in  Italy 
must  have  observed  not  a  few  Italian  posters, 
chiefly  railroad  advertisements,  having  a  quality 
of   their   own,   a  national    note,  perhaps  best  to 


250       Boo/cbindijigs  Old  and  New, 

be  characterized  as  a  Inroad  richness  of  colour 
not  unlike  that  to  which  we  are  accustomed  in 
Roman  scarfs  and  Bellagio  rugs.  In  the  brill- 
iancy of  some  of  these  posters  I  have  thought 
I  detected  the  influence  of  the  little  group  of 
Hispano-Roman  painters;  and  I  have  noted 
also  the  decorative  methods  of  the  lithographic 
designers  who  have  devised  the  showy  but  not 
inartistic  covers  for  the  sheet-music  issued  by 
the  Milanese  publisher,  Signor  Ricordi.  M. 
Maindron,  the  first  historian  of  the  pictorial 
poster,  has  declared  that  Signor  Simonetti,  the 
water-colourist,  is  to  be  credited  with  the  elabo- 
rate posters  announcing  the  Exposition  of 
Turin  some  six  or  seven  years  ago.  It  may 
be  doubted  whether  these  Italian  posters  are 
really  any  more  effective  —  even  the  best  of 
them  —  than  the  best  of  the  strikino^  and  brill- 
iant  paper-covers  with  which  Signor  Ricordi 
adorns  the  music  he  publishes. 

Fine  as  is  not  a  little  of  the  work  of  these 
Italians  both  in  the  pictorial  poster  and  in  the 
paper-cover,  it  is  on  the  whole  not  equal  to  that 
of  the   Frenchmen,  M.  Jules  Cheret,  M.  Grasset, 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.       25 1 

and  M.  Willette.  Of  these,  M.  Cheret  is  the 
pioneer,  and  although  I  confess  a  great  Hking 
for  the  Byzantine  compositions  of  M.  Grasset, 
I  cannot  but  think  that  M.  Cheret  is  still  to 
be  hailed  as  the  master  of  these  two  branches 
of  the  decorative  art. 

We  are  all  profoundly  grateful  to  M.  Cheret 
that  he  has  enlivened  the  dull  gray  walls  of 
Paris  by  lightly  draped  and  merrily  dancing 
figures,  giving  a  suggestion  of  life  and  warmth 
to  the  wintry  streets  of  the  French  capital. 

These  aerial  bodies,  with  their  diaphanous 
drapery  and  their  swift  movement,  suggest  the 
figures  frescoed  on  the  walls  of  Pompeii ;  and 
M.  Cheret  is  not  without  his  share  of  the  Latin 
ease  and  verve  which  forever  fixed  these  Pom- 
peian  girls  as  a  joy  to  the  world.  He  has  also 
the  bold  stroke  of  the  Japanese  artist,  and  he 
has,  moreover,  the  Japanese  faculty  of  suppress- 
ing needless  details :  for  there  is  never  any  nig- 
gling, any  finicky  cross-hatching,  any  uncertainty, 
in  M.  Cheret's  work.  He  is  an  impressionist  in 
one  sense  of  the  word,  —  an  impressionist  who 
has  a  masterly  command  of  line  and  an  absolute 


252       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

control  of  colour,  and  who  uses  these  to  make  you 
perceive  what  has  impressed  him.  The  figure 
he  sketches  may  be  as  saucy  as  you  please,  but 
there  is  no  slouch  about  the  composition. 

To  describe  his  work  adequately  we  must, 
as  M.  Henry  Lavedan  suggested,  borrow  from 
this  decorator  certain  of  his  own  colours,  a 
lemon-yellow,  and  a  geranium-red,  and  a  mid- 
night-blue ;  and  even  then  we  should  lack  the 
cunning  of  the  artist  so  to  juxtapose  these  as  to 
reproduce  his  effects.  Almost  equally  difBcult 
is  it  to  reproduce  here  what  is  most  representa- 
tive in  M.  Cheret's  work ;  for  above  all  else  is 
he  a  colourist,  and  the  attempt  to  translate  his 
w^ork  into  the  monochrome  of  typography  is 
little  less  than  a  betrayal.  The  compact  and 
skilful  composition  can  be  shown,  and  the  force 
of  the  drawings;  but  the  effort  to  transfer  the 
charm  of  the  colour  is  foredoomed  to  failure. 

In  M.  Cheret's  book-covers  we  see  the  same 
freshness  of  touch,  the  same  Japanese  freedom 
of  design,  the  same  fantasy  of  invention,  the 
same  exceedinor  skill  in  the  combination  and 
contrast  of  simple   colours,  which  delight  us   in 


253 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        255 

his  pictorial  posters.  We  see  also  the  same 
ingenuity  in  the  adapting  of  the  means  to  the 
end.  M.  Cheret's  decoration,  when  he  has  been 
most  inspired,  consists  of  a  single  design  covering 
the  back  and  both  of  the  sides  of  the  wrapper, 
and  adroitly  devised  so  that  each  side  has  its 
own  ornament.  An  excellent  example  of  this 
is  his  cover  for  a  sensational  novel  called  "  Pile 
de  Pont,"  with  its  single  stalwart  figure  of  a 
man  projected  blackly  within  the  light  circle 
made  by  an  arch  of  the  bridge  and  its  reflec- 
tion in  the  water  flowing  placidly  beneath, 
while  the  bridge  extends  its  successive  arches 
one  behind  the  other  across  the  back  and 
around  the  other  side  of  the  wrapper.  Another 
example  is  the  cover  of  M.  Lefevre's  "  Scara- 
mouche,"  with  its  Mephistophelian  figure  sil- 
houetted sharply  above  the  joyous  trio  of  Pierrot, 
Columbine,  and  Harlequin.  This  wrapper  is 
unusually  effective  and  harmonious  in  colour. 

Of  M.  Willette's  cover  for  "  L'Enfant  Pro- 
digue  "  I  have  already  made  mention.  Of  M. 
Grasset's  cover  for  the  "  Dix  Contes "  of  M. 
Jules    Lemaitre    I    have    no   space    to   speak  at 


256       Bookbifiifijigs  Old  and  New. 

length.  It  is  one  of  the  most  elaborate  and 
sumptuous  of  French  paper-covers,  and,  like 
M.  Grasset's  pictorial  posters,  it  suggests  the 
rich  and  solid  translucency  of  stained  glass. 
Modern  and  French  as  are  both  M.  Grasset 
and  M.  Cheret,  the  one  seems  to  have  found  his 
inspiration  in  a  medioeval  cathedral,  and  the 
other  in  a  Japanese  theatre.  In  the  richly 
polychromatic  design  M.  Auriol  has  made  for 
M.  Octave  Uzanne's  "  Contes  pour  les  Biblio- 
philes," perhaps  the  first  thing  to  strike  us  is 
a  certain  rigidity  of  the  reading  figures  who 
pass  before  us  in  "  stained-glass  attitudes." 
In  the  equally  unusual  and  effective  decora- 
tion M.  Carloz  Schwabe  devised  for  M.  Emile 
Zola's  ecclesiastical  tale,  "  Le  Reve,"  probably 
what  we  note  before  anything  else  is  the 
strange  complication  of  the  design  and  its 
elaborate    symbolism. 

Of  M.  Steinlen  I  know  no  pictorial  poster; 
but  none  the  less  is  he  the  author  of  two  of 
the  most  novel  of  recent  French  book-covers. 
One  is  for  a  book  of  M.  Aristide  Bruant's 
unconventional    and    unspeakable    songs    of    the 


V 


^kfa 


UT 


'J^cidfr  ^^WM 


r,.BlARDOT   EdiLeur,  22.Pla.edela  i^deleine.  PtfJS 


DESIGNED   BY   WILLETTE. 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        259 

Paris  streets,  "  Dans  la  Rue."  It  consists  of 
a  file  of  sandwichmen,  beginning  with  a 
weather-worn  old  fellow  (on  the  front),  and 
extending  (around  the  back)  out  into  the  gas- 
lit  darkness  of  a  damp  and  wintry  boulevard. 
The  other  was  made  for  one  of  M.  Jules  Moi- 
naux's  humorous  legal  year-books,  "  Les  Tri- 
bunaux  Comiques."  Here  the  artist  makes 
a  clever  and  novel  combination  of  figures  col- 
oured naturally,  with  solid  silhouettes  extend- 
ing in  panoramic  procession  around  the  back 
of  the  volume. 

Less  unexpected  are  two  other  French 
paper-covers  herewith  reproduced.  Full  of 
character  is  that  which  appears  on  the  out- 
side of  "  Bric-a-Brac,"  an  album  of  comic 
sketches  by  that  delightful  pictorial  humourist, 
the  Franco-Russian  who  calls  himself  Caran 
d'Ache.  Pleasantly  rococo  is  the  eighteenth 
century  flavour  of  the  design  with  which  M. 
Louis  Morin  has  adorned  the  cover  of  a  recent 
illustrated  edition  of  Gautier's  "  Petit  Chien  de 
la  Marquise." 

One    of    the   most    amusing    of    M.    Cheret's 


26o        Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

covers  is  that  prepared  for  the  illustrated  cata- 
logue of  the  "  Exposition  des  Arts  Incoherents," 
in  1886;  it  is  as  artistic  and  as  incoherent  as 
any  of  the   studio  jokes   which   may  have   b-een 


I  AceuM 


Q^^e'^o, 


Designed  by  Caran  d'Ache.  Paris  •   E.  Plon  Nourrit  &  Co. 

shown  in  the  exhibition  itself.  Especially  note- 
worthy is  the  humour  with  which  the  pictures 
on  both  the  sides  and  the  back  are  combined 
and  yet  kept  separate.     Mr.   Harry  Furniss  con- 


Designed  by  Carioz  Schwabe. 


Paris  :   E,  Flammarion. 


261 


Bookbindings  Old  and,  New.        263 

fined  his  design  for  a  British  pamphlet  about 
the  "  Pictures  of  1891  "  to  the  front  of  the 
wrapper,  which  had  for  its  centre  a  palette  with 
portraits  of  the  best-known  artists  of  London. 


,55    ■W^'^^X 


P^w^^,^„.^c^^m:^j^^ 


YfV^^^^^¥l 


\ 


,^eiUQ 


^ 


C. 


i;„r    ,.  dc  la  Marquisc..-,^^;" 


■:^^,..: 


,/^ 


Designed  by  Louis  Morin. 


Paris :  L.  Conquet. 


III. 


BRITISH    AND-  AMERICAN    PAPER-COVERS. 

Covers  of  exhibition  catalogues  seem  closely 
akin  to  covers  of  magazines,  except  that  the 
former    may    be    sportive    while    the    latter    are 


TyPCENTURTI 
ILLUSTRATED 
mONTHLY^ 
MAGAZIN 


DESIGNED   BY  ELIHU   VEDDER. 


condemned  to  greater  seriousness   by  reason   of 

their  longer  permanence.     Many  of  the  leading 

artists  of   the    day  have    designed  wrappers   for 

magazines.      The    former    cover    of     The    Ccu- 

264 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.       265 

tury  was  invented  by  Mr.  Stanford  White,  and 
redrawn  by  Mr.  Elihu  Vedder,  and  the  present 
cover  was  devised  by  Mr.  Stanford  White ;  that 
of  the  new  Scribners  is  by  Mr.  Stanford  White ; 
that  of  the  English  Ilhistrated  Magazine  is  by 
Mr.  Walter  Crane.     Messrs.  Abbey  and   Parsons 

THE  CENTURY 
ILLUSTRATED 
©MONTHLY® 
MAGAZINE 

i^  % 

r  '4 


DESIGNED   BY  STANFORD  WHITE. 


prepared  the  cover  for  the  British  edition  of 
Harpers  —  to  my  mind  far  more  appropriate 
than  the  cover  of  the  American  edition,  a  rem- 
iniscence of  the  old  Bentleys  Miscellany.  Mr. 
Francis  Lathrop  drew  a  dignified  cover-design 
for  the  dead  and  gone  Majihattan ;  and  M.  Luc 
Olivier  Merson  made  a  design  equally  dignified 
for    the    equally    defunct    Paris    Ilhistre.       Mr. 


266       Boo/cbindiiio-s  Old  and  New. 


Bertram  Goodhue's  wrapper  for  his  quarterly 
Knight  Errant^  with  its  vague  suggestion  of 
"  Childe  Roland  to  the  Dark  Tower  came,"  is 
worthy  to  be  compared  with  the  Centitry  Guild 
Hoddy-Horse  —  also    the    organ    of    authors   and 


^^ne-CnGLISH- 

fiLUSTRflTGD 


DESIGNED  BY  WALTER   CRANE. 


artists  dissatisfied  with  their  environment  and 
with  their  epoch.  To  be  noted  also  are  certain 
of  the  covers  made  by  Mr,  W.  H.  Bradley  for  the 
Chicago  Inland  Printer ;  and  not  to  be  omitted 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.       267 


is  the  graceful  and  classic  design  by   Mr.   Will 
H.   Low  now  seen  on  the  Bookbuyer, 

"  That  there  is  a  character  in  American  desis^n 
which    is    hardening    into    style,    I    think    every 


ILLUSTRATED^ieOPAGES^ONE  SHILLING 


HARjPEICS 

AONTHLT 
yVGAZINE 


JAMES  R.  OSGOOD,  M^ILVAINE  &  COMFANY. 
4S.  ALBEMARLE  STREET.  LONDON.  W. 
HARPER&BR0THER5,  E?ANJ{L1N  SQUAEE.  N  EW  YOK  K . 
LONDON  OTFICE.  4SAIBEMaKLE  JSTREET.V. 


one  who  has  had  much  to  do  with  American 
designers  will  agree,"  wrote  the  lady  who  is 
the  chief  of  the  Associated  Artists,  a  few 
years    ago ;     and     Mrs.     Wheeler    went    on    to 


268        Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

declare  that  this  American  style  seems  to 
possess  three  important  qualities  :  *'  First,  abso- 
lute fidelity  and  truth,  as  shown  in  Japanese 
art ;     second,     grace     of     line,     which     perhaps 


comes  from  familiarity  with  the  forms  of  the 
Renascence ;  and  third,  imagination,  or  indi- 
viduality of  treatment.''  In  its  own  way  the 
American    pictorial    poster    has   felt    the    inliu- 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        269 

ence  of  this  forward  movement ;  and  it  can 
be  called  to  bear  witness  in  behalf  of  Mrs. 
Wheeler's  declaration,  just  as  her  own  embroid- 
eries and  textiles  can,  or  the  La  Farge  and 
Tiffany   stained  glass,   or    any  other  latter  day 


DESIGNED   BY    WILL   H.    LOW. 


development  of  the  art  instinct  of  the  American 
people. 

A  habit  of  the  German  periodical  Dahcim 
of  changing  its  cover  with  every  issue,  gives 
the  outside   of  this  publication   a  certain    fresh- 


270        B 00 kb hidings  Old  and  New. 


ness  not  always  to  be  discovered  on  the  inside. 
The  habit  has  been  adopted  also  by  the  French 
monthly  Figaro  Illuslre,  which  reproduces 
polychromatically  a  water-colour  drawing  of  one 


MARCH.  1894 

iii@«@iti^^«-siii^3i^siii€«@iii««eiiie«eiiis-« 


riE  n/iRv/iRD 

GR71DU71TES 


Vol.  2 


-MQ.7 


PU5USnEDDY 

The  n  ARVARD  ■  G  R ADU ATCS 

Aagazinc -Association 

6BEACON  St ■  Boston  Aass. 


or  another  of  the  brilliant  French  painters  of 
the  day.  Perhaps  the  monthly  change  of  the 
design  allows  the  paper-cover  to  serve  also  as 
a  pictorial  poster  to  draw  the  attention  of  those 
who   pass  by  the    stall    on  which    it  is   exposed 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        271 

to  the  appearance  of  the  new  number.  One 
American  periodical  has  acquired  the  same 
habit,  T/ic  Ladies'  Home  Joiirnal,  which  has 
reproduced  on  its  broad  front  page  drawings 
by  most  of  the  leading  American  artists  in 
black    and    white. 

A  former  cover  of  St.  Nicholas,  the  chil- 
dren's magazine,  was  designed  by  Mr.  Walter 
Crane,  to  whom,  for  that  and  for  other  things, 
the  gratitude  of  the  nursery  is  forever  due. 
Its  present  cover  was  drawn  by  Mr.  Harold 
B.  Sherwin.  When  Robert  Louis  Stevenson, 
in  his  "  Child's  Garden  of  Verses,"  sings  of 
"  Picture   Books  in   Winter,"  he  tells  us  that 

All  the  pretty  things  put  by 

Wait  upon  the  children's  eye, 

Sheep  and  shepherds,  trees  and  crooks. 

In  the  picture  story-books. 

We  may  see  how  all  things  are, 
Seas  and  cities,  near  and  far. 
And  the  flying  fairies'  looks. 
In  the  picture  story-books. 

But  these  illuminated  horn-books,  these  tiny 
tomes  of   youthful  joy,  arc  the  guerdon   of    tlie 


272       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

children  of  the  present.  The  children  of  the 
past  knew  them  not.  "  The  New  England 
Primer  "  had  a  cover  of  the  utmost  typographic 
severity,  as  dignified  and  as  scornful  of  vain 
delights  as  the  "  Bay  Psalm  Book "  itself. 
Learning  was  not  made  alluring  for  the  sons 
of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  nor  for  their  grand- 
sons. I  doubt  not  that  Jonathan  Edwards 
would      have      denounced     "  Readinsf     without 

O 

Tears  "  as  a  pestilent  and  irreligious  work. 

Yet  a  score  of  years  before  the  American 
metaphysician  was  born,  a  French  metaphy- 
sician had  published  a  book  on  the  "  Educa- 
tion of  Daughters,"  in  which  he  advised  that 
the  young  be  taught  to  read  in  cheerful  fairy 
tales,  so  that  the  labour  may  be  lightened. 
Fenelon  even  ordered  that  a  well-bound  book 
be  given  to  the  child  —  a  book  with  gilt  edges 
and  fine  illustrations.  But  the  treatise  of  the 
Archbishop  of  Cambrai  had  been  written  origi- 
nally for  his  friends  the  Duke  and  Duchess 
of  Beauvillier;  and  onlv  in  the  households  of 
the  rich  could  the  children  be  gratified  and 
incited  by  "  well-bound  books  with  gilt  edges 
and  fine  engravings." 


■A-BOOK-GF-OLD-p.MYnE5'Vv/ITH-NEWDKE5SES'' 

^^-Aa/ALTER:  CRANE    ^ 

•THE- MUSIC -BY -THE- EARLIEST-   MASTEKS' 


ned  by  Walter  Crane.     By  permission  of  Edmund  Evans. 

T  273 


London  :  George  Rutledgo  it  bons. 


FOES 

IN 
AMBUSH 


,^tAPT.  CHARLES  KINO 


Designed  by  R.  L.  M.  Camden.  Published  by  J.  B.  Lippincott  Co. 

"FOES   IN   AMBUSH,"    HY    KING. 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        277 

For  the  most  part  the  Httle  volumes  pre- 
pared for  the  use  and  behoof  of  the  young 
were  but  shabby  things,  often  httle  better  than 
chap-books.  The  first  edition  of  Goldsmith's 
"  Goody  Two  Shoes  "  —  if  indeed  it  be  Gold- 
smith s  of  a  surety  —  is  rudely  manufactured; 
and  so  were  most  books  for  the  young  until 
within  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago.  They 
were  vilely  illustrated ;  and  they  had  coloured 
covers  crude  and  violent  in  outline  and  in  tint 

Then — -it  was  in  1865  —  Mr.  Walter  Crane 
began  designing  children's  toy-books  in  associa- 
tion with  Mr.  Edmund  Evans,  engraver  and 
colour-printer.  In  1870  was  published  "This 
Little  Pig  went  to  Market,"  with  its  strong, 
definite  outlines,  and  its  flat,  bright  colours, 
and  with  its  cover  as  seemly,  as  decorous,  and 
as  decorative  as  any  baby,  however  fastidious, 
might  wish.  In  1875  began  another  series  of 
eight  larger  toy-books,  with  a  uniform  wrapper; 
among  these  were  "  Beauty  and  the  Beast " 
and  an  "  Alphabet  of  Old  Friends."  Then,  in 
1876,  came  "The  Baby's  Opera,"  and  in  1879 
"The     Baby's    Bouquet,"    and    in     1886    "The 


2/8        Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

Baby's  Own  ^sop,"  all  attired  in  printed 
paper-covers  mounted  on  pasteboard,  most 
harmonious  in  colour  and  inventive  in  design. 
And  all  these  books  and  many  more  were 
devised  by  Mr.  Crane  not  for  the  children  of 
the  rich  only,  not  for  the  daughters  of  the 
Duchess  of  Beauvillier,  but  for  the  children 
of  the  poor,  able  to  pay  only  a  sixpence,  it 
might  be,  for  the  beginning  of  the  baby's 
Hbrary. 

After  Mr.  Crane  had  shown  the  w^ay,  Miss 
Kate  Greenaway  began  to  follow  in  his  foot- 
steps with  her  exquisite  little  books  for  little 
people;  and  so  did  the  late  Randolph  Calde- 
cott,  with  his  more  robust  drawinsr.  It  was 
in  1878  that  Caldecott  published  the  first  of 
his  picture-books  —  "The  House  that  Jack 
Built " ;  and  in  the  same  year  came  out  the 
second  "  John  Gilpin."  Fourteen  more  ap- 
peared in  the  next  seven  years,  ending  with 
"  The  Great  Panjandrum  Himself,"  which  bore 
the  date  of  1885.  I^  "^^'^s  in  1879  that  Miss 
Greenaway  published  the  first  of  her  picture- 
books,     the      well-known     "  Kate     Greenaway 's 


ONE    SHILLING 


'^m 

3 

1 

i 

1  ..tfCEORCE     jtOUT      LT,  L 

' 

Designed  by  R.  Caldecott.      By  permission  of  Edmund  Evans.  London  ;  George  Rutledge  &  Sons. 

279 


Designed  by  Walter  Crane.  Published  by  George  Allen. 

SPENSER'S   "  FAERIE   QUEENE." 

281 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New,        283 

Little  Folks'  Painting  Book " ;  and  in  the 
same  year  came  also  her  "  Under  the  Window." 
"  The  Kate  Greenaway  Birthday- Book "  bears 
the  date  of  1880,  and  the  "Mother  Goose" 
ajDpeared  the  year  after. 

I  am  under  the  impression  that  it  is  to  a 
study  of  Miss  Greenaway's  simple  and  quaint 
drawings  that  M.  Boutet  de  Monvel  owes  his 
inspiration  for  the  French  picture-books  for 
children  that  he  has  published  in  Paris  more 
recently.  Perhaps  this  is  the  first  time  any 
British  artist  has  influenced  a  Frenchman 
since  the  Fontainebleau  school  rediscovered 
landscape  in  the  paintings  of  Constable. 

I  have  been  able  to  give  but  a  hasty  glance 
over  a  field  where  there  is  much  to  be  gleaned 
by  the  patient  labourer;  but  I  trust  I  have 
succeeded  in  suggesting  that  the  paper-cover  is 
not  a  thing  to  be  despised,  that  it  may  be  a 
thing  of  beauty,  and  that  it  may  be  a  thing 
of  value.  One  word  of  warning,  and  I  have 
done :  never  destroy  the  paper-cover  of  a  book, 
even  of  the  least  important  pamphlet.  The 
integument     is    an    integral    part    of    the    book ; 


284       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

and  if  the  book  is  worth  keeping,  so  is  its 
cover,  which  shoukl  be  bound  in  always.  The 
wrapper  may    contain    advertisements    or   other 


TESATRE  DELA  RENAISSAVCE 


DESIGNED   BY    BOUTET   DE   MONVEL. 


information,  or  it  may  have  a  portrait  or  some 
other  illustration  not  contained  within  the  book 
itself ;    and    then    if    you    remove   the    wrapper 


Design-jJ  L/  K 


ij  L.aii^.      Lundun  :  George  Rutleclge  Si  Sons. 


285 


Bookbindings  Old  and  Neiv.        287 

your  book  will  never  be  perfect.  It  will  always 
be  short  of  something ;  it  will  always  be  defec- 
tive and  incomplete,  even  though  it  should  be 
in  the  binding  of  a  Trautz-Bauzonnet  or  of  a 
Cobden-Sanderson. 


THE  GROLIER  CLUB  OF 
NEW  YORK. 


THE  GROLIER  CLUB  OF 
NEW  YORK. 


I. 

NEW    YORK    AND    ITS    CLUBS. 

Once  upon  a  time  M.  Francisque  Sarcey, 
wishing  to  express  his  abhorrent  contempt  for 
a  poor  play,  doubted  whether  it  would  please 
even  the  inhabitants  of  Carpentras  or  of  New 
York.  I  think  we  New  Yorkers  may  fairly  pro- 
test against  this  likening  of  our  fellow-citizens 
to  the  dwellers  in  the  Boeotia  of  France,  even 
though  we  do  not  dare  to  call  our  city  the 
Athens  of  America.  In  the  noisy  and  futile 
discussion  as  to  the  future  literary  capital  of 
these  United  States,  one  agreement  was  clear 
above  the  din,  that  this  country  had  not  as 
yet   such    a   focus    of    intellectual,    political,    and 

material    activity    as    London    was    in    the    days 

291 


292       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

of  Queen  Elizabeth ;  and  to  the  want  of 
one  such  here  Lowell  attributed  much  of  the 
"  backwardness  and  provincialism  of  our  own 
literature." 

Although  there  is,  very  fortunately,  a  cen- 
trifugal tendency  in  our  system  of  politics 
and  education,  aiding  in  the  starting  of  little 
literary  centres  here  and  there  throughout  the 
land,  it  is  clear  also,  I  think,  that  there  is  quite 
as  strong  a  centripetal  tendency  towards  the 
concentration  of  a  large  portion  of  the  intel- 
lectual, material,  and  political  activity  of  the 
United  States  here  in  the  city  of  New  York. 
And  it  will  be  well  for  us  if  the  intellectual 
activities  are  not  pushed  aside  and  thrust 
under  by  the  overmastering  stress  of  material 
or  political   activities. 

The  fact  that  most  of  the  leading  American 
publishing  houses  are  in  New  York  may  bear 
witness  chiefly  perhaps  to  the  material  activity 
of  the  city;  but  the  fact  that  most  of  the  best 
magazines  and  reviews  (weekly  and  monthly) 
issue  hence,  and  that  most  of  the  exhibitions 
and    sales    of    pictures    are    held    here,    goes    to 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.       293 

show  that  the  intellectual  movement  is  not 
sluggish.  This  movement  is  strengthened  and 
sustained  by  many  clubs  and  associations  of 
all  sorts  and  for  all  purposes,  made  up  of  little 
knots  of  men  interested  in  one  or  another 
manifestation  of  literature  or  art.  I  need  not 
refer  to  the  Authors  Club,  housed  for  several 
years,  oddly  enough,  over  the  Fencers'  Club, 
and  having  so  many  members  in  common  with 
it  that  the  fighting  editor  was  no  myth  and  the 
quarrels  of  authors  under  this  roof  were  briefer 
and  more  pointed  and  less  acrimonious  than 
those  recorded  by  Disraeli.  I  need  do  no  more 
than  note  the  disputatious  Nineteenth  Century 
Club;  the  venerable  Century  and  the  revived 
University  Clubs ;  the  Tile  Club ;  the  kindred 
Salmagundi  and  Kit-Cat  Clubs ;  the  old  Greek 
Club  and  the  new  Library  Club;  the  Archi- 
tectural League;  the  Aldine  Club,  composed  of 
the  men  who  make  books ;  and  The  Players 
(the  Garrick  Club  of  New  York),  with  its  beau- 
tiful home  in  Gramercy  Park  and  its  fine  gallery 
of  histrionic  portraits,  both  presented  by  Edwin 
Booth.     A  rare  wealth  of  material  will  lie  ready 


294       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

to  the  hand  of  the  Dr.  Francis  of  the  twentieth 
century  who  may  write  about  old  New  York 
clubs ;  but  I  doubt  if  he  shall  find  anywhere 
in  his  catalogue  a  more  interesting  association 
than  the  Grolier. 

The  Grolier  Club  is  a  gathering  of  those  who 
love  books  for  their  external  beauty  —  for  the 
choice  quality  of  the  paper,  for  the  graceful 
firmness  of  the  type,  for  the  even  clearness  of 
the  pressvvork,  for  the  harmonious  elegance  of 
the  illustrations,  and  for  the  decorative  skill 
bestowed  on  the  binding.  Its  constitution  de- 
clares that  "  its  object  shall  be  the  literary 
study  and  promotion  of  the  arts  pertaining  to 
the  production  of  books."  That  is  to  say,  the 
Grolier  Club  is  interested  in  books  not  as 
literature  but  as  w^orks  of  art.  It  is  with  the 
art  and  mystery  of  the  book-maker,  the  printer, 
the  engraver,  and  the  binder,  and  not  with  the 
secrets  of  authorship,  that  the  members  of  the 
Grolier  Club  concern  themselves,  although  many 
of  them  are  scholars  and  students  of  litera- 
ture. They  are  true  book-lovers,  and  not 
mere    book-hoarders ;  they  are    bibliophiles,  not 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        295 

bibliomaniacs ;  they  love  a  book  for  its  in- 
trinsic beauty,  not  for  its  accidental  rarity ; 
they  cherish  a  volume  because  of  its  charming 
vignettes  or  its  vigorous  press-work,  not  because 
it  belongs  to  "  the  good  edition  —  the  one  with 
the  two  misprints  "  : 

Ah,  je  la  tiens  !  —  Que  je  suis  aise  ! 

C'est  bien  la  bonne  Edition 

Car  viola,  pages  quinze  et  seize, 

Les  deux  fautes  d'impressoin 

Qui  ne  sont  point  dans  la  mauvaise. 


THE  GROLIER   ARMS, 


II. 

GROLIER    HIMSELF. 

The  Grolier  Club  is  named  after  Jean  Grolier 
de  Servier,  Viscount  d'Aguisy,  Treasurer-Gen- 
eral of  France,  who  was  a  book-lover  choosing 
the  best  impressions  of  the  best  editions  of  the 
best  books  and  having  them  bound  by  the  best 
binders  under  his  own  supervision.  Grolier  was 
one  of  the  earliest  of  the  great  bibliophiles  of 
France.  The  French  have  always  been  first  in 
their  affection  for  choice  tomes,  and  they  have 
been  foremost  also  in  the  skill  and  the  taste  of 
their  book-making.  Mr.  Lang,  in  his  delight- 
fully easy  and  learned  treatise  on  "  The  Library," 
has  quoted  Dante's  reference  to  "  the  art  that  is 
called  illuminating  in  Paris  " : 

L  'onor  di  quell'  arte 
Ch'  allumare  e  chiamata  in  Parisi. 

In  the  century  and  a  half  which  elapsed  be- 
tween Dante's  death  and  Grolier's  birth  printing 

296 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        297 

had  been  invented,  and  the  art  which  is  called 
illuminating  had  begun  to  be  neglected,  but 
without  impairing  the  supremacy  of  Paris. 
Grolier  was  of  Italian  origin,  and  he  served  for 
years  in  Italy,  at  Milan  first,  and  then  at  Rome. 
In  1534  he  had  been  appointed  French  ambas- 
sador to  Clement  VII.,  and  it  was  then  that  he 
began  to  collect  books.  After  his  return  to  his 
own  country  he  held  several  high  offices,  and  he 
was  Treasurer-General  of  France  when  he  died 
in  1565  at  the  age  of  eighty-six.  His  library 
remained  intact  until  1675,  when  it  was  sold 
and  scattered. 

The  researches  of  M.  Le  Roux  de  Lincy, 
Grolier's  erudite  biographer,  enable  us  to  de- 
clare that  it  was  the  library,  not  of  a  collector 
of  literary  varieties,  but  of  a  scholar  who 
wished  to  have  at  hand  the  best  books  of 
his  time.  Apparently  there  were  on  Grolier's 
shelves  few  or  none  of  the  books  which,  in 
M.  Alphonse  Daudet's  sharp  phrase,  are  "  in- 
tended for  external  use  only."  Unlike  many 
modern  collectors,  Grolier  read  the  treasures 
he    had    garnered;     and    their     contents     were 


2gS       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

worthy  of  the  artistic  casing  he  gave  them. 
He  was  the  comrade  of  the  chief  scholars  of 
his  time.  Erasmus  praised  him ;  and  Aldus 
Manutius,  the  great  printer,  dedicated  a  book 
to  him.  A  friend  of  authors,  editors,  and  pub- 
lisher-printers, Grolier  was  always  very  wary 
in  his  picking  of  copies,  and  he  had  a  pro- 
vision of  fine  paper  whereon  a  special  im- 
pression was  made  for  him  alone  where  the 
common  edition  did  not  satisfy  his  fastidious- 
ness. These  chosen  sheets  were  then  clad  in 
leather  suits  by  the  best  binders  of  the  day, 
who  decorated  them  with  designs  full  of  the 
delightful  freedom  of  the  richest  period  of  the 
Franco-Italian  renascence. 

It  is  small  wonder  that  a  library  called  into 
being  with  such  exceeding  care  and  so  adorned 
by  the  cunning  of  the  most  adroit  workmen 
should  have  high  repute,  and  that  when  it  was 
dispersed,  a  hundred  years  and  more  after  Gro- 
lier's  death,  the  separate  books  were  eagerly  pur- 
chased at  what  in  those  days  seemed  full  prices. 
But  in  the  two  centuries  since  the  sale  the 
value  of  these  volumes  has  been  rapidly  rising, 


GROLIER   CLUB   BOOK   PLATE. 
299 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.       301 

until  a  single  tome  has  been  sold  by  auction  for 
nearly  six  thousand  dollars  —  this  is  the  noble 
copy  of  Heliodorus  owned  by  Mr.  Hoe.  In 
Paris  the  National  Library,  and  in  London 
the  British  Museum,  are  fortunate  in  the  pos- 
session of  books  bearing  Grolier's  philan- 
thropic  motto ;    and    in   New   York  others  may 

€t  arm  corum  ♦ 

AUTOGRAPH  OF  GROLIER  FROM  CAPELLA'S  "ANTHROPOLOGY." 
(owned   by    MR.   SAMUEL   P.   AVERY.) 

be  seen  in  the  library  of  Columbia  College  and 
in  the  Astor  Library.  Not  a  few  which  are 
owned  by  members  of  the  Grolier  Club ;  and 
engravings  of  some  of  these  are  given  here- 
with ;  and  these  plates  will  show  far  bet- 
ter than  any  wandering  words  of  mine  the 
characteristics  of  the  famous  Grolier  bindings. 
But  although  these  reproductions  reveal  the 
grace  and  the  delicacy  of  the  design,  they 
cannot  revive  the  noble  richness  of  the  gild- 
ings nor  the  artful  contrast  of  the  colours. 


III. 


THE    AIMS    OF    THE    CLUB. 


The  origin  of  the  Grolier  Club  of  New 
York  is  recorded  in  the  first  volume  of  its  trans- 
actions. A  little  gathering  of  men  interested 
in  the  arts  "  entering  into  the  production  of 
books "  was  held  at  the  house  of  Mr.  Robert 
Hoe,  Jr.,  in  January,  1884.  They  determined 
to  organize  a  club,  and  to  that  end  they 
appointed  committees  to  present  a  name  and 
to  prepare  a  constitution.  Early  in  February 
the  members  adopted  a  constitution  which 
declares  that  the  founders  of  the  club  are 
William  L.  Andrews,  Theodore  L.  De  Vinne, 
Alexander  W.  Drake,  Albert  Gallup,  Robert 
Hoe,  Jr.,  Brayton  Ives,  S.  W.  Marvin,  Edward 
S.  Mead,  and  Arthur  B.  Turnure ;  and  then 
they  elected  Mr.  Hoe,  President,  and  Mr. 
Brayton    Ives,    Vice-President.     A    club    device, 

including    the    arms    of    Grolier,    was    provided 

302 


THE  GROLIER   CLUB   BUILDING,   NEW  YORK. 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.       305 

a  fortnight  later.  Then  the  chib,  having  a 
name,  chose  a  local  habitation  at  No.  64 
Madison  Avenue,  where  the  council  first  met 
about  the  middle  of  April  —  less  than  three 
brief  months  after  the  first  conference.  There, 
in  rooms  simply  and  most  tastefully  decorated 
and  furnished,  the  Grolier  Club  made  its  home 
for  a  brief  season  ;  there  it  took  root  and  flour- 
ished and  brought  forth  fruit;  there  its  mem- 
bers listened  to  a  series  of  lectures  as  instruc- 
tive as  they  were  interesting;  and  there  they 
held  separate  exhibitions  of  etchings,  of  manu- 
scripts, of  original  designs  for  book  illustration, 
of  bindings,  and  of  early  printed  books. 

Then  in  1886  the  club  moved  into  a  house 
of  its  own.  No.  29  East  32d  Street,  where  it 
had  more  ample  accommodation  for  its  many 
new  members.  The  architect,  Mr.  Charles  W. 
Romeyn,  carefully  considered  the  special  needs 
of  an  association  of  this  sort:  that  he  suc- 
ceeded in  giving  the  club-house  a  dignified 
and  characteristic  physiognomy  of  its  own,  the 
accompanying  sketch  shows  plainly  enough. 
And    in    this    dignified    and    spacious    dwelling 

X 


3o6       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

the  Grolier  Club  has  continued  to  prosper 
ever  since.  Mr.  Hoe  was  succeeded  in  the 
presidency  by  Mr.  William  Loring  Andrews ; 
and  in  due  season  Mr.  Andrews  was  followed 
by  Mr,  Beverly  Chew. 

Of  the  founders  of  the  club,  some  were  merely 
book-lovers    from    taste  and    some    were     book- 


«^4 

limiwl^^ 

JIllMM^ 

yl  %H  1^^^  1  nJ  1  N+f 

^1t 

"Tv\^'* 

^Mmm-^ 

lI^^ 

M 

^n^"^1E9^ 

^1 
1 

mm. 

fc5?^n«^^\\H 

A  CARD  OF   INVITATION   FOR   WHIST. 

lovers  by  trade  —  printers  and  publishers ;  and 
thus  the  club  began  with  a  novel  and  fertile 
alliance  of  the  dilettante  and  the  professional,  an 
alliance  likely  to  be  of  lasting  benefit  to  both. 
The  object  of  the  club  was  in  reality  twofold  — 
to  brini?  tos^ether  those  interested  in  the  arts  of 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        307 

book-making,  that  there  might  be  a  stimulat- 
ing interchange  of  suggestions  and  experiences  ; 
and  also  to  further  these  arts  in  the  United 
States. 

Although  there  are  an  increasing  few  in 
America  who  know  a  beautiful  book  when 
they  see  it,  there  are  also,  alas !  not  a  few 
who  dwell  in  outer  darkness,  and  in  whose  eyes 
the  simple  typographic  beauty  of  the  Ameri- 
can edition  of  Lowell's  "  Democracy,"  or  of 
the  British  edition  of  Mr.  Lang's  "  Letters 
to  Dead  Authors,"  is  no  better  than  the  ill- 
made  tawdriness  of  the  American  edition  of 
Mr.  Locker's  "  Lyra  Elegantiarum " —  a  most 
feeble  attempt  at  bespangled  splendour.  There 
are  not  a  few,  I  fear  me  greatly,  who  know 
not  the  proper  proportions  of  a  printed  page, 
and  who  do  not  exact  that  the  cruel  knife  of  the 
reckless  and  mercenary  binder  shall  never  shear 
a  hair's-breadth  from  width  or  height;  who  do 
not  consider  whether  the  fair  white  space  of  the 
outer  and  lower  margins  shall  be  precisely  twice 
as  full  as  the  inner  and  upper  margins ;  and 
who  take  no  care  that  the  width  of  the  page  of 


3o8        Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

type  shall  be  strictly  one-half  of  the  length  of 
the  diagonal  of  the  page.  There  are  not  a 
few  to  whom  these  niceties  are  unknown  — 
not  a  few  in  the  United  States  and  not  a  few 
in  Great  Britain. 

So  far  as  I  know,  the  Grolier  Club  is  the 
first  society  founded  to  unite  book-lovers  and 
book-makers  and  to  gratify  the  needs  and 
wishes  of  both  classes  of  its  members  by  col- 
lecting and  exhibiting  the  best  works  of  the 
great  artists  of  the  past  and  by  producing  new 
books  which  may  serve  as  types  of  the  best 
that  modern  skill  and  taste  may  do.  This 
double  function  of  the  Grolier  Club  I  do  not 
find  in  any  earlier  organization  either  in  Amer- 
ica or  in  Europe.  Neither  in  England  nor  in 
France  is  there  any  society  exactly  equivalent 
to  this  New  York  club. 

In  London,  that  useful  body  the  Burling- 
ton Fine  Arts  Club  was  formed  "  to  bring 
together  amateurs,  collectors,  and  others  inter- 
ested in  art ;  to  afford  ready  means  for  consul- 
tation between  persons  of  special  knowledge 
and  experience   in    matters    relating  to   the    fine 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.       309 

arts;  and  to  provide  accommodation  for  show- 
ing and  comparing  rare  works  in  the  posses- 
sion of  the  members  and  their  friends " ;  and 
during  the  past  twenty  years  it  has  held 
nearly  forty  special  exhibitions  of  works  of  art, 
and  perhaps  ten  of  these  special  exhibitions 
have  been  akin  in  subject  to  those  held  at 
the  rooms  of  the  Grolier  Club.  But  the  Bur- 
lington Fine  Arts  Club  extends  its  interest 
over  all  the  fine  arts,  and  it  is  as  likely  to 
gather  and  display  bronzes  or  ivories,  porce- 
lains or  paintings,  as  it  is  to  show  woodcuts, 
etchings,  or  illuminated  manuscripts  ;  while  the 
Grolier  Club  confines  its  attention  solely  to 
arts  pertaining  to  the  production  of  books. 

In  Paris  the  Societe  des  Amis  des  Livres 
declares  that  its  aim  is  "  to  publish  books,  with 
or  without  illustration,  which  by  their  typo- 
graphic execution,  or  by  their  artistic  selection, 
shall  be  an  encouragement  to  the  painters  and 
to  the  engravers  as  well  as  a  motive  of  emu- 
lation to  the  French  printers,"  and  also,  "  to 
create  a  friendly  feeling  among  all  bibliophiles 
by   means  of  frequent    reunions."     The  Society 


3 1  o        Bookbijidiiigs  Old  and  New. 

of  the  Friends  of  Books  is  limited  to  a  mem- 
bership of  fifty  with  an  addition  of  twenty-five 
corresponding  members  non-resident  in  Paris. 
Ladies  are  eHgible  for  membership,  and  the 
first  name  on  the  Hst  in  alphabetical  order  is 
that  of  Madame  Adam.  Among  the  other 
members  are  the  Duke  d'Aumale,  M.  Henri 
Beraldi,  M.  Henri  Houssaye,  M.  Auguste 
Laugel,  M.  Eugene  Paillet,  Baron  Roger  Por- 
talis,  and  M.  Octave  Uzanne.  The  sumptuous 
tomes  prepared  with  loving  care  and  untiring 
toil  by  the  Society  of  the  Friends  of  Books 
are  known  to  all  bibliophiles  through  the 
world  as  examples  of  the  highest  endeavour  of 
the  art  of  book-making  in  France  to-day. 

The  Burlington  Fine  Arts  Club  does  not 
publish  books,  and  only  a  few  of  its  valuable 
exhibitions  are  devoted  to  the  arts  pertaining  to 
the  making  of  books.  The  Societe  des  Amis 
des  Livres  publishes  books  and  holds  no  ex- 
hibitions. The  Grolier  Club  unites  the  three 
qualities  to  be  found  in  differing  degrees  in 
one  or  the  other  of  these  European  clubs:  it 
has    frequent    meetings    at    which   its    members 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.       3 1 1 

may  talk  shop  and  free  their  souls ;  it  gives 
exhibitions;  and  it  prints  books.  (I  open  a 
parenthesis  here  to  note  that  there  was  once 
an  unpretending  little  Book  Fellows'  Club  here 
in  New  York  which  printed  a  tiny  tome  now 
and  again ;  and  to  record  that  there  is  a  dining 
club  in  London  called  the  Sette  of  Odde  Vol- 
umes, for  whom  a  few  pretty  books  —  mostly 
of  a  personal  interest  and  of  varying  value  — 
have  already  been  printed.  But  neither  of 
these  can  fairly  be  called  a  rival  of  the  Grolier 
Club.) 

I  am  forced  to  consider  the  meetings  of  the 
Grolier  Club  before  discussing  the  books  it  has 
published,  because  certain  of  its  publications 
have  had  a  previous  existence  as  lectures  de- 
livered before  the  members.  During  the 
winter  of  1884-85,  the  first  whole  season  that 
the  club  was  in  full  possession  of  its  rooms, 
Mr.  Theodore  L.  De  Vinne  lectured  on  "  His- 
toric Printing-Types,"  Mr.  Hoe  on  "  Bookbind- 
ing Artistically  Considered,"  and  Mr.  Will- 
iam Matthews  on  "  Practical  Bookbinding." 
In     1885-86     Professor     Chandler    lectured     on 


3 1 2       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

"  Photo-Mechanical  Processes,"  Mr.  Elbridge 
Kingsley  on  "  Modern  Wood-Engraving,"  and 
Professor  Knapp  on  "  Thierry  Martens  and  the 
early  Spanish  Press."  In  1886-87  Mr.  W.  J. 
Linton  spoke  on  the  "  Wood-Engravers  of  the 
XVth  and  XVIth  Centuries,"  Professor  R.  R. 
Rice  on  "  The  Etchings  of  Storm  van's  Grave- 
sande,"  Mr.  Brayton  Ives  on  "  Early  Printed 
Books,"  and  Mr.  Heromich  Shugio  on  "  Ori- 
ental Books."  In  1887-88  Professor  West  dis- 
cussed the  "  Philobiblon,"  Professor  Russell  Stur- 
gis  analyzed  "  Turner's  '  Liber  Studiorum,' "  and 
Mr.  W.  Lewis  Eraser  considered  "  Nearly  Two 
Hundred  Years  of  Book-illustrating  in  Amer- 
ica." In  1888-89  Mr.  George  Hannah  lectured 
on  "  Early  Printed  Books  relating  to  America," 
and  Mr.  H.  Mansfield  on  "The  Etched  Work 
of  Alphonse  Legros."  In  1890  Mr.  W.  C. 
Prime  lectured  on  "  Diirer  and  his  Contempo- 
raries"; and  in  1891  Mr.  H.  Carrington  Bolton 
discoursed  upon  a  collection  of  books  on 
alchemy  and  kindred  subjects.  In  1892  Mr. 
Frederick  Keppel  delivered  an  address  on 
"  Some     Masterpieces    of    Engraving " ;    and    in 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.       3 1 3 

1893  Mr.  Charles  R.  Hildebiirn  considered  the 
career  of  "  Wilham  Bradford,  first  printer  in 
the  Middle  Colonies."  And  in  1894  Mr.  J. 
Wells  Champney  read  a  paper  on  "  Pastels 
and    Pastellists." 

The  most  of  these  lectures  accompanied  or 
preceded  special  exhibitions  of  the  objects 
under  discussion  or  of  the  works  of  the  master 
eulogized.  There  were  any  number  of  other 
exhibitions  in  connection  with  which  no  ad- 
dresses were  delivered ;  indeed  these  special 
exhibitions  of  prints,  of  portraits,  of  drawings, 
of  fans,  of  early  printed  books,  of  pictorial 
posters,  of  pastels,  of  etchings  and  bookbind- 
ings old  and  new  are  too  many  to  be  here 
catalogued  in  detail  as  they  deserve. 


IV. 

THE  PUBLICATIONS  OF  THE  GROLIER  CLUB. 

The  first  publication  was  aptly  chosen  ;  it  was 
a  reprint  of  "  A  Decree  of  Starre-Chamber,  con- 
cerning printing,  made  the  eleventh  day  of  July 
last  past.  1637."  By  declaring  it  unlawful,  with- 
out special  authorization,  to  make,  buy,  or  keep 
types  or  presses,  or  to  practise  the  trade  of  a 
printer,  publisher,  or  bookseller,  the  men  who 
were  misruling  England  sought  to  render  print- 
ing too  full  of  risk  to  be  profitable,  and  they 
hoped  thus  to  prevent  the  expression  of  the  dis- 
content with  which  the  people  were  boiling.  As 
it  is  neatly  put  in  Mr.  De  Vinne's  vigorous  and 
lucid  preface  to  this  reprint :  "  Annoyed  by  a 
little  hissing  of  steam,  they  closed  all  the  valves 
and  outlets,  but  did  not  draw  or  deaden  the  fires 
which  made  the  steam.  They  sat  down  in  peace, 
gratified  with  their  work,  just  before  the  explo- 
sion which  destroyed  them  and  their  privileges." 

314 


A 


DECREE 

OF 

Starre-Chamber, 
CONCERNING 

Printing, 

S^Iade  the  eletienth  day  of  July 
lajl  pajl.    1637. 


^Imprinted  at  London  by  'Rpbcrt "Barker, 

Printer  to  the  Kings  motl  Excellent 

Maieftie :  And  by  the  Affignes 

of  Mb  BiU.  1637. 


REDUCED    FACSIMILE   (IF  TITLE-PAGE   OF  GROLIER   CLUB   EDmON 
OF   "A   DECREE   OF   STARRE-CHAMBER,    CONCERNING   PRINTING." 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        3 1 7 

This  decree  was  issued  in  1637  ;  four  years  later 
the  Court  of  Star  Chamber  was  aboHshed ;  and 
in  1649  King  Charles  was  beheaded.  The 
reprinted  decree  is  an  admirable  piece  of  book- 
making.  The  type  is  an  old  style  great  primer, 
with  Dutch  capitals  for  the  italic  letter.  The 
paper  is  Dutch  also,  as  becomes  the  first  publica- 
tion of  the  organized  bibliophiles  of  the  city 
which  was  once  New  Amsterdam.  The  cover 
is  of  Japanese  paper,  folded  in  the  style  made 
popular  in  Paris  by  M.  Jouaust,  and  having 
imprinted  on  it  in  gold  a  facsimile  of  a  book- 
cover  designed  by   Roger   Payne. 

The  second  publication  is  less  interesting 
because  the  reason  of  its  choice  is  not  apparent. 
It  is  a  reprint  of  Edward  Fitzgerald's  "  Rubaiyat 
of  Omar  Khayyam."  It  is  not  unlike  the 
"  Decree  of  Starre-Chamber  "  in  make-up,  differ- 
ing chiefly  in  that  it  is  on  Japanese  paper  and 
adorned  with  head-bands  printed  in  colours  from 
Persian  designs.  The  cover,  also  from  an  Ori- 
ental model,  was  also  printed  in  colours.  Beau- 
tiful as  this  book  is,  it  is  less  satisfactory  than 
its  predecessor,  because  there  was  no  imperative 


3 1  $       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

need  for  it.  Although  Oriental  art  in  verse  and 
decoration  is  profoundly  suggestive,  the  issuing 
of  yet  another  new  edition  of  the  "  Rubaiyat," 
however  worthy  it  may  be  of  the  noblest  set- 
ting, might  seem  rather  the  task  of  a  British 
Burlington  Fine  Arts  Club  than  of  an  American 


^      tv    / 

< 

x 

3^rs^*S5^^^&^ 

'^ 

^ 

"^^^^^^ 

^^fe^ 

f          ^ 

..- .. 

^'^^ 

^^s 

MIRACULOUS  ESCAPE  OF  A -GREAT  METROPOLIS  IN  A  FOG — HEAD-PIECE 
FROM  GROLIER  CLUB  EDITION  OF  "KNICKERBOCKER'S  'HISTORY  OF  NEW 
YORK.  '  "    (DRAWN    BY    W.    H.   DRAKE.) 

Grolier  Club,  The  French  Society  of  the 
Friends  of  Books  confines  its  labours  to  the 
reproduction  and  adornment  of  French  books, 
and  there  is  no  apparent  wisdom  in  the  de- 
parture of  the  American  Grolier  Club  from  a 
like  rule  to  reprint  chiefly  those  books  of 
American  authors  which  lend  themselves  best 
to  appropriate  decoration. 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        3 1 9 

No  better  choice  could  the  GroHcr  Chib 
have  made  than  the  work  selected  as  its  third 
publication.  This  is  Washington  Irving's  "  His- 
tory of  New  York,  from  the  Beginning  of  the 
World  to  the  End  of  the  Dutch  Dynasty,  by 
Diedrich  Knickerbocker."  Here  was  a  most 
happy  solution  of  the  claims  of  locality  and 
the  claims  of   literature.      Most  fitly   could    the 


HEAD-PIECE  FROM  GROLIER  CLUB  EDITION  OF  "  KNICKERBOCKER'S  '  HIS- 
TORY OF  NEW   YORK.'  "      (DRAWN  BY   HOWARD   PYLE.) 

Grolier  Club  bend  its  energies  to  the  prepara- 
tion and  production  of  a  rich  and  worthy 
edition  of  a  book  about  New  York  by  the 
greatest  of  New  York  authors.  By  good  for- 
tune the  humorous  chronicle  of  the  learned 
and  gentle  Dutch  antiquary  lends  itself  easily 
to  abundant  illustration  and  decoration ;  and 
of  the  opportunities  offered    by    the   late    Died- 


2,20       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

rich  Knickerbocker  the  present  GroHer  Club 
has  been  swift  to  avail  itself.  No  better  piece 
of  book-making  has  ever  been  sent  forth  by 
an  American  publisher.  It  seems  to  me  that 
this  cheerful  issue  of  "  Knickerbocker's  '  His- 
tory of  New  York ' "  is  worthy  to  stand  beside 
M.    Conquet's  noble    editions    of    Stendhal's  two 


NOAH'S  LOG-BOOK  —  HEAD-PIECE  FROM  GROI.IER  CLUB  EDITION  OF 
"KNICKERBOCKER'S  'HISTORY  OF  NEW  YORK.'"  (DRAWN  BY  W.  H. 
DRAKE.) 

great  novels,  "  Le  Rouge  et  le  Noir"  and  "La 
Chartreuse  de  Parme  "  —  the  models  of  modern 
book-making,  and  altogether  the  best  that 
French  taste  and  French  skill  can  accomplish 
in  this  difficult  art.  I  do  not  say  that  the 
American  volumes  are  quite  equal  to  the 
French ;  they   lack,    for  one    thing,    the    tender 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        321 

and  brilliant  etchings  which  serve  as  head- 
pieces for  every  chapter  of  Stendhal's  stories; 
and  again,  they  are  without  the  final  refine- 
ment of  the  recurring  title  water-marked  in 
the  lower  margins  of  the  page.  Perhaps  the 
American  books  have  not  all  the  soft  richness 
and  easy  grace  of  M.  Conquet's  masterpieces, 
but  yet  they  brave  the  comparison  boldly. 

From  cover  to  core  there  is  a  delightfully 
Dutch  flavour  in  these  two  comely  tomes.  The 
boards  in  which  they  are  bound  are  clad  in 
orange,  as  befits  the  garb  of  the  only  true 
account  of  the  decline  and  fall  of  Dutch  rule 
in  America.  The  paper  within  is  Dutch ;  and 
Dutch,  too,  are  the  types,  facsimile  of  those 
used  by  Elzevir  at  Leyden  in  1659  —  only  five 
years  before  New  Amsterdam  experienced  a 
change  of  heart  and  became  New  York,  after 
Colonel  Nichols,  taking  Peter  Stuyvesant  by 
surprise,  had  captured  the  city.  The  frontis- 
pieces to  the  two  volumes  are  etchings  from 
drawings  of  "The  Battery  in  1670,"  and  "The 
Governor's  Representative,"  by  Mr.  George  H, 
Boughton,   who    was   once  a  school   boy  in   the 


322       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

Aurania  of  the  Dutch.  The  other  two  etch- 
ings are  views  of  "  Fort  New  Amsterdam, 
1651,"  and  of  "New  Amsterdam  in  1656,"  this 
last  being  a  reproduction  of  the  earhest  known 
print  of  New  York.  The  half-titles,  head-bands, 
tail-pieces  and  initial  letters  are  some  of  them 
from  Dutch  models,  and  all  of  them  are  most 
pleasantly  Dutch  in  spirit;  two  of  them  were 
designed  by  Mr.  Howard  Pyle,  and  the  rest 
were  drawn  by  Mr.  Will  H.  Drake.  It 
remains  only  to  note  that  the  original  manu- 
script of  Irving's  careful  and  elaborate  revision 
of  "Knickerbocker's  '  History  of  New  York'"  is 
now  owned  by  a  member  of  the  Grolier  Club, 
and  that  advantage  was  taken  of  this  to  indi- 
cate in  an  appendix  the  minor  and  yet  always 
interesting  changes  and  suppressions  of  the 
author. 

Except  a  useful  pamphlet  of  "  Transactions  " 
the  "Knickerbocker's  'History  of  New  York'" 
was  the  only  publication  of  the  Grolier  Club 
during  the  season  of  18S5-86;  and  during  the 
next  winter  the  club  confined  itself  to  the 
printing    of   certain    of    the    lectures    delivered 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.       323 

before  it.  The  first  of  these  had  been  by 
the  President,  Mr.  Robert  Hoe,  on  "  Book- 
binding as  a  Fine  Art,"  and  it  was  the  first 
to  appear  as  a  book.  When  Mr.  Hoe  spoke 
before  the  ckib,  he  illustrated  his  remarks  by 
specimens  of  the  work  of  many  of  the  most 
noted  binders,  all  selected  from  his  own  library, 
photographs  of  which  were  thrown  on  a  screen 
by  the  stereopticon ;  and  the  published  lecture 
is  made  more  valuable  by  sixty-three  "  Bier- 
stadt  artotypes  "  of  these  bindings  of  Mr.  Hoe's. 
Although  the  plates  reveal  the  extraordinary 
richness  of  the  lecturer's  collection,  not  all 
the  examples  were  worthy  of  reproduction ; 
and,  no  doubt,  more  characteristic  illustrations 
might  have  been  procured  had  a  call  been  made 
for  the  best  specimens  obtainable  from  other 
members  of  the  club. 

The  second  lecture  was  on  "  Historic  Print- 
ing-Types," by  Mr.  Theodore  L.  De  Vinne. 
Delivered  in  January,  1885,  it  was  published 
by  the  Grolier  Club  with  additions  and  with 
new  illustrations.  As  all  know  who  have  read 
Mr.    De    Vinne's    "  Invention    of    Printing,"   he 


324       Bookb'uidiiigs  Old  and  New. 

is  a  master  not  only  of  his  own  craft,  but  also 
of  the  more  arduous  art  and  mystery  of  author- 
ship. Mr.  De  Vinnes  style  as  a  writer  is  as 
clear  and  as  simple,  as  firm  and  as  vigorous, 
as  is  his  press-work  as  a  printer.  His  wide 
and  deep  knowledge  of  the  subject  has  been 
so  thoroughly  digested  and  it  is  so  pleasantly 
presented,  that  I  think  a  merely  casual  reader, 
having  a  Gallio-like  indifference  to  type-setting 
and  type-founding,  would  find  his  interest  aroused 
at  the  beginning  of  Mr.  De  Vinne's  essay. 

It  is  the  more  fortunate  that  the  subject 
should  have  fallen  into  hands  so  accomplished, 
as  there  is,  so  we  read  in  the  introduc- 
tion, "  no  popular  treatise  about  book-types ; 
nothing  that  gives  us  in  succinct  and  con- 
nected form  information  about  their  designers 
and  makers,  and  that  tells  us  why  styles  once 
popular  are  now-  obsolete."  It  is  the  want  of 
such  a  treatise  that  Mr.  De  Vinne  has  filled, 
all  too  brief  as  his  paper  is.  As  the  author 
is  his  own  printer,  it  is  needless  to  say  that 
the  book  in  which  the  lecture  appears  is  a 
masterpiece    of    American    book-making,    a  mar- 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        325 

vel  of  the  most  admirable  simplicity.  The 
paper,  the  type,  the  press-work,  the  size  and 
the  shape  of  the  page,  the  adroit  arrangement 
of  the  marginal  notes,  the  due  subordination  of 
the  foot-notes,  the  ample  and  properly  propor- 
tioned margins,  even  the  novel  and  dignified 
binding  —  all  these  testify  to  the  guiding  touch 
of  a  master  of  the  craft. 

In  1888  the  club  published,  "as  a  sort  of 
New  Year  book,"  so  a  report  calls  it,  a  dainty 
edition  of  the  late  Charles  Reade's  histrionic 
tale,  "  Peg  Wofifington,"  suggesting  in  its 
mechanical  execution  the  book-making  of  the 
century  when  the  lovely  Mistress  Margaret 
flourished.  The  two  little  tomes  were  pretty 
enough,  but  one  wonders  exactly  why  this 
British  story  should  be  chosen  for  reproduc- 
tion by  an  American  club.  In  1889  the  first 
book  of  the  year  was  far  more  appropriate; 
it  was  Mr.  De  Vinne's  delightful  account  of 
the  Plantin  printing-house,  reprinted  from  the 
Cc7itury  magazine  with  additions  and  notes,  all 
Mr.  Pennell's  picturesque  sketches  being  printed 
in  varying  tints. 


326       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 


The  most  important  publication  of  the  club, 
even  more  important  than  the  "  Knicker- 
bocker," is  the  "  Philobiblon "  of  Richard  de 
Bury,  The  good  Bishop  of  Durham  holds 
perhaps    the   foremost    place    among    all    British 


ejr  (j^timis  CoUtcttus  3Rtcrasuit 

Version?  SLnglicanetnon  ct^rolts 
gomntis  ^[iJnotationtliusciUE  9[ujrit 
?>  9[nt>rtaB  Jflfintns  IBIlcst  -cr 
in  Collfgio  ^rincrtoniff  professor 


ti  ®  $ars  $rftna  q  Crjrttis  ®  || 


REDUCED    FACSIMILE    OF    TITLE-PAGE    OF    GROLIER    CLUl!     LATIN    EDITION 
OF   "  PHILOBIBLON." 

book-lovers,  just  as  Grolier  holds  the  foremost 
place  among  all  French  book-lovers ;  and  it 
was  most  fit  and  appropriate  that  a  company 
of  American  book-lovers  named  for  the  French- 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.       327 


man  should  choose  for  reverent  reproduction 
the  masterpiece  of  the  Enghshman.  The  task 
was  honourable  but  laborious ;  and  it  was 
undertaken  not  lightly  or  in  a  spirit  of  levity, 
but     with     courage,     determination,     and     fore- 


bomiiii  fliratbi  be  aiunctrbilc  tosmnninati  \>z  aSutp  ' 
-quoitbam  iCfijttopi  SI>undmniiBii#.  dTomjifauji- 
*>cjst  flutnn  ttiutimifl;  i.stc  in  inmima  no^tro  bc^ 
■<o-2lluIiflaiibt  tiirc;Shna  quarto  bic  3rinimru-53> 
">-  nirno  Domini  miflc;$imo  trctntfcsriinii  -** 
■^-*=-  nuabniffcflimo  nunito,  ittatiX  nosT;  -^-^■ 
^— «»-  as  quhuiimscsfimo  ortabo  ptu  — *-** 
•«»--«= — »  tijfe  tompirto,  ponnKtatuji  g-- <•■<■■ 
•^  ■  •>  ■  •>-  bcto  nOiSlri  anno  unbe;  -<.■  <•■  <. 
-*>— «»— s=— s=-  tma  finitna  ab  laus  -<»—:»-<■  ■  <» 
•>  ■>  ■>  ■  •>—  btm  Dd  taitis 
<«  1^  •\-..-^  •>-ttr.  amtn.- 


REDUCED    FACSIMILE    OF    LAST    PAGE    OF    GROLIER    CLUB    LATIN    EDITION 
OF   "  PHILOBIBLON." 

thought.  The  mechanical  execution  was  con- 
fided to  Mr.  De  Vinne,  than  whom  no  one 
was  worthier.  The  literary  labour  was  under- 
taken    by     Professor    Andrew     Fleming     West 


328        Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

of  Princeton,  who  had  ah-eady  lectured  before 
the  club  upon  the  book  he  was  to  edit.  Pro- 
fessor West  shrunk  not  from  the  toil  of  a 
dutiful  comparison  of  manuscripts  and  early 
editions  that  a  proper  text  might  be  estab- 
lished ;  and  this  proper  text,  most  devoutly 
amended  and  revised,  the  club  sent  forth  as 
the  first  volume.  In  the  second  was  contained 
Professor  West's  sturdy  and  precise  render- 
ing of  the  original  Latin  into  our  later  Eng- 
lish. These  two  volumes,  long  delayed  by 
the  ardent  and  arduous  labours  of  the  editor, 
were  followed  by  a  third  volume  in  which 
was  to  be  found  an  introduction,  an  account 
of  the  author,  and  such  notes  as  were  need- 
ful for  the  elucidation  of  the  work. 

The  edition  was  limited  to  two  hundred  and 
ninety-seven  copies  on  paper  and  three  on  vel- 
lum, one  of  which  latter  is  properly  reserved 
for  the  library  of  the  club.  The  volumes  are 
clad  in  pure  vellum  covers,  stamped  with  the 
gold  seal  of  the  good  bishop,  while  within 
there  is  a  novel  lining-paper,  rich  in  colour  and 
congruent    in    design.     The    form    is     a    small 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.       329 

quarto,  with  a  page  six  inches  wide  and  a 
httle  less  than  eight  inches  long.  The  paper, 
a  so-called  "  white  antique,"  is  American  hand- 
made by  the  Brown  Company,  and  Mr.  De 
Vinne  regards  it  as  whiter,  clearer,  and  better 
than  any  English,  Dutch,  or  Italian  jDrinting 
paper. 

The  typography  is  not  merely  decent  and 
seemly ;  it  is  as  exact  and  as  beautiful  as  the 
utmost  skill  and  loving  care  could  make  it. 
The  type  of  the  first  volume,  which  contains 
the  Latin  text,  is  a  pica  black-letter ;  the 
second  volume,  which  contains  the  English 
translation,  being  set  in  modern  Roman  (not 
old  style)  small  pica.  The  black-letter  types 
were  got  out  of  the  vaults  of  Sir  Charles 
Reed's  Sons  for  Mr.  De  Vinne  by  Mr. 
Talbot  Baines  Reed,  and  they  are  drives  of 
punches  believed  to  have  been  cut  in  France 
in  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
There  are  rubricated  initials,  of  a  full-bodied 
vermilion  not  often  seen  nowadays.  There  are 
head-pieces  and  tail-pieces,  some  of  them,  and 
the    more    ingenious,    having    been    devised    by 


330        Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

Mr.  G.  W.  Edwards.  There  is  a  page  of  fair 
proportion  (as  we  have  seen),  and  there  is  a 
type  rightly  adjusted  thereto;  and  there  is  the 
very  perfection  of  press-work,  ahke  impeccable 
in  impression  and  in  register.  Herein  indeed 
we  see  the  final  superiority  of  the  best  modern 
printing  by  improved  machines  when  guided 
by  a  fine  artistic  sense ;  such  registry  as  this 
would  be  absolutely  accidental,  not  to  say 
impossible,  on  the  hand-presses  of  the  early 
printers. 

In  the  manufacture  of  this  edition  of  the 
"  Philobiblon "  there  was  the  full  harmony 
which  comes  from  a  union  of  knowledge,  skill, 
and  taste.  It  is  a  delight  to  the  eye,  to  the 
hand,  and  to  the  mind.  At  last  the  book  of 
Richard  de  Bury  had  a  goodly  outside,  as 
becomes  the  words  of  wisdom  within.  To  love 
books  and  to  own  a  book  like  this  is  to  have 
a  foretaste  of  the  book-lover's  heaven.  To 
study  a  book  like  this  in  an  edition  like 
this  leads  away  from  vice  and  conduces  to 
virtue.  Indeed  we  read  therein  (cap.  xv.)  that 
"  no   man  can  serve  both  books  and  mammon." 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        33 1 

In  1889  in  an  edition  of  three  hundred 
copies  there  was  published  the  lecture  on 
"  Modern  Bookbinding  Practically  Considered  " 
which  Mr.  William  Matthews  had  delivered 
before  the  club  four  years  before  and  from 
which  more  than  one  quotation  has  been  taken 
to  enlighten  the  preceding  pages  of  the  pres- 
ent volume.  Externally  this  volume  ranged 
with  the  published  lectures  of  Mr.  Hoe  and 
Mr.  De  Vinne ;  and  internally  it  was  illus- 
trated as  Mr.  Hoe's  had  been  with  abundant 
photogravures. 

In  1890  one  of  the  most  artistic  of  the 
club's  publications  was  issued,  —  artistic  largely 
because  of  its  seemly  simplicity.  This  was 
an  edition  of  three  hundred  and  twenty-five 
copies  of  the  "  Areopagitica,  a  speech  of 
Mr,  John  Milton,  for  the  liberty  of  unlicensed 
printing."  For  this  Lowell  wrote  an  intro- 
duction, characteristically  commingled  of  wis- 
dom and  of  wit :  it  is  now  to  be  found  in  the 
latest  edition  of  his  complete  works. 

In  189 1  the  chief  publication  was  the  address 
on  "  Washington    Irving "    which    George    Will- 


332       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

iam  Curtis  had  delivered  at  Ashfield  two  years 
before  and  which  has  since  been  inckided 
in  the  posthumous  volume  of  his  "  Literary 
and  Social  Essays."  This  was  fitly  illustrated, 
and  the  edition  was  limited  to  three  hundred 
and  forty-four  copies.  As  the  club  increased 
its  membership,  the  size  of  its  editions  had 
also  to  increase. 

Hitherto  the  publications  of  the  Grolier  Club 
had  been  of  two  kinds :  either  they  were 
lectures  delivered  before  the  members  or  they 
w^ere  independent  works  which  the  club  wished 
to  honour.  Now  there  began  to  appear  a  third 
class,  being  the  catalogues  of  the  exhibitions 
held  at  the  club-house.  In  1891  there  was  pub- 
lished a  catalogue  of  engraved  portraits  of  the 
most  famous  English  writers,  from  Chaucer  to 
Johnson;  followed  in  1892  by  a  catalogue  of 
illuminated  and  painted  manuscripts ;  and  in 
1893  ^^y  ^  catalogue  of  original  and  early 
editions  of  some  of  the  poetical  and  prose 
works  of  English  writers  from  Langland  to 
Wither.  In  1894  there  was  printed  a  classified 
list  of  early  American  book-plates;  and  in  1895 


Bookbmdings  Old  and  New.        333 

a  cataloQ^ue  of  books  from  the  libraries  or  col- 
lections  of  celebrated  bibliophiles  and  illustrious 
persons  of  the  past,  with  arms  or  devices  upon 
the  bindings.  Most  of  these  lists  were  set  off 
and  enriched  with  facsimiles;  and  all  were 
models  of  the  typographic  art.  And  akin  to 
these  records  of  special  exhibitions  held  within 
the  club-house,  was  a  volume  of  "  Transac- 
tions"  published  toward  the  end  of  1894  and 
containing  the  history  of  the  club  to  the  end 
of  its  first  decade. 

In  this  summary  list  of  these  several  cata- 
logues, I  could  not  of  course  refer  to  two  other 
publications  made  in  the  past  five  years.  One 
of  them  was  an  original  essay  by  Mr.  Moncure  D. 
Conway  on  "  The  Barons  of  the  Potomack  and 
the  Rappahannock,"  of  which  three  hundred  and 
sixty  copies  were  printed  in  1892.  The  other 
was  a  facsimile  of  Bradford's  "  Laws  and  Acts 
of  the  General  Assembly  for  their  Majesties 
Province  of  New  York.  Originally  printed  in 
1694,  it  was  reprinted  by  the  club  in  an  edition 
of  three  hundred  and  twelve  copies  just  two 
centuries  after  the  laws  had  been  enacted. 


334       Bookbindings  Old  and  New. 

Two  other  of  the  publications  of  the  Grolier 
Club  must  be  mentioned  here,  —  if  publications 
they  can  fairly  be  called.  The  first  was  a 
bronze  medallion  portrait  of  Nathaniel  Haw- 
thorne, made  for  the  club  by  M.  Ringel  d'lll- 
zach  in  1892;  and  the  second  was  an  etching 
by  M.  Fran9ois  Flameng  of  the  picture  of 
"  Aldus  in  his  Printing  Establishment  at 
Venice,  showing  Grolier  some  Bookbindings," 
the  original  having  been  painted  by  M. 
Fran9ois  Flameng  and  presented  to  the  club 
by  Mr.  S.  P.  Avery  —  to  whom,  indeed,  the 
library  of  the  Grolier  (like  that  of  the  Players) 
is  indebted  for  many  benefactions. 

The  membership  of  the  Grolier  Club  was  at 
first  limited  to  one  hundred  (it  has  now  been 
enlarged  to  allow  of  two  hundred  and  fifty 
resident  members),  but  the  editions  of  its  pub- 
lications have  generally  somewhat  exceeded 
the  smaller  number,  and  the  unfortunate 
outsider  has  sometimes  been  able  to  acquire 
these  treasures  by  the  aid  of  a  friend  at 
court.  This  liberality  is  in  proper  accord 
with     the    spirit    of    the     inscription    stamped 


Bookbindings  Old  and  New.        335 

on  Grolier's  own  books,  —  lo.  Grolierii  et 
ainicorum,  —  setting  forth  that  they  belonged 
to  Grolier  and  his  friends.  Surely  an  altruism 
like  this  is  as  rare  as  the  selfishness  of  Sca- 
liger,  who  bade  his  friends  buy  books  for  them- 
selves. 

To  grant  or  to  withhold,  the  question  is  equally 
difficult  —  (sqtie  diffiailter.  When  all  book- 
owners  shall  freely  lend  and  send  their  most 
precious  tomes  with  ungrudging  speed,  then 
will  be  the  book-lover's  millennium,  which  the 
founding  of  the  Grolier  Club  here  in  New 
York  may  haply  help  to  bring  to  pass.  And 
in  the  meanwhile  its  members  may  pine  for 
that  book-man's  Paradise: 

There  treasures  bound  for  Longepierre 
Keep  brilliant  their  morocco  blue, 
There  Hookes'  "Amanda"  is  not  rare, 
Nor  early  tracts  upon  Peru  ! 
Racine  is  common  as  Rotrou, 
No  Shakspere  Quarto  search  defies, 
And  Caxtons  grew  as  blossoms  grew, 
Within  that  Book-man's  Paradise. 


INDEX. 


Abbey,  E.  A.,  199,  2 '3. 

Aguisy,  Viscount  of  [Grolier],  5. 
Aldine  Press,  iS,  22. 
A  dine  typographic  devices,  26. 
A.   us,  14,  76. 

American  silversmiths'  book  deco- 
rating, 151. 
Amyot,  Jacques,  48. 
Armstrom  ,  Miss,  242. 
Arnold,  Matthew,  117. 
Assyrian    ookbinding,  6. 
Astor  Library,  301. 
Auriol,  M.,  256. 
Avery,  S.  P.,  154,  215. 

Badier,  Florimond,  58. 
Bedford,  Francis,  107,  126. 
Bewick,  118. 
Binders  of  to-day,  119. 
Binding  by  machinery,  182. 
Bindings  in  cloth,  176. 
Block  design  for  covers,  177. 
Bolton,  H.  Carrington,  312. 
Bookbinding  in  France,  89. 
Bookbinding,  early  Italian,  14. 
Bookbinding  in  Venice,  18. 
Bookbinding    in   Venice   during 

fifteenth  century,  75. 
Bookbinding  in  America,  90,  138, 

144. 
Bookbinding    in    France    under 

Napoleon  I.,  116. 


Bookbinding  in  monasteries,  9. 
Bookbinding,   exhibition   at   the 

Grolier  Club,  108. 
Bookbinding,     forwarding,     and 

finishing,  loi. 
Bookbinding,     wooden     boards, 

ID. 

Bookbinding  in  silver,  9. 
Bookbinding,  carved  ivory,  9. 
Bookbinding,  commercial,  182. 
Bookbinding,  antiquity  of  edition 

binding,  171. 
Bookbinding,  technic  of  the  craft, 

95- 

Bookbinding,  as   it   is   practised 

to-day,  98. 
Bookbinding,  "  forwarding,"  95. 
Bookbinding,  the  "Powder,"  38. 
Bookbinding,  curiosities,  152. 
Bookbinders    of    Great    Britain, 

90,  125. 
Bookbinders'  tools,  25. 
Bookbinders,     modern     French, 

1 22 . 
Bookbinder  as   an  artisan-artist, 

167. 
Book  covers  in  calico,  184. 
"  Book  of  the  Tile  Club,"  212. 
Book  Fellows'  Club,  311. 
Books  first  bound  in  cloth,  184. 
Books  bound  in  sealskin,  159. 
Books  in  paper  covers,  233. 


337 


338 


Index. 


Books     with     illustrated     paper 

covers,  238. 
Books  bound    in   alligator   skin, 

158. 
Book-worm,  10. 
Boone,  Daniel,  160. 
Boughton,  G.  H.,  200,  215. 
Boule,  80. 
Boyets,  the,  71. 
Bradley,  W.  H.,  266. 
British     and     American     paper 

covers,  264. 
British  railway  novels,  240. 
British  booksellers,  194. 
Burlington  Fine  Arts  Club,  310. 
Burton's  "  Book-hunter,"  3. 
Burty,  Philippe,  153. 

Caldecott,  Randolph,  237,  278. 

Cape,  122. 

Caran  d'Ache,  259. 

Castellani,    modern    workers    in 

silver,  1 1 1 . 
Cellini,  Benvenuto,  9,  18. 
Chambolle-Duru,  122. 
Champney,  J.  Wells,  313. 
Charles  V.,  9. 
Charles  IX.,  5,  37,  53. 
Cheret,  Jules,  175,  245,  248,  250. 
Cloth  binding,  176,  184. 
Cloth  binding  for  special  books, 

209. 
Clubs  of  New  York,  293. 
Cobden-Sanderson,  62,  104,  129, 

132.  152,  166. 
Columbia  College  Library,  301. 
Conway,  Moncure,  D.,  "  Barons 

of  Potomack,"  333. 
Coverly,  Roger  de,  132. 


Crane,  Walter,  132,  237,241,277. 
Cruickshank's     "  Comic     Alpha- 
bet," 241. 
Curtis,  George  William,  331. 
Cuzin,  122. 

Dana's  "Two  Years,"  160. 
'*  Daphnis  et  Chloe,"  72. 
Day,  Lewis  F.,  204. 
Derome,  47,  152. 
Derome,  the  younger,  83. 
Derome,  lacework  borders,  85. 
De  Samblancx,  122. 
De  Thou,  Jacques  Auguste,  47. 
De  Vinne,  Theodore  L.,  323,  329. 
De  Vinne,  "  Plantin." 
Diana  of  Poitiers,  54. 
Dibdin,  84,  118. 
Didot,  F.,  14. 
Dobson,  Austin,  161. 
Dubuisson,  86. 

DuChaillu's  ''Land  of  Midnight 
Sun,"  199. 

Edwards,    G.    W.,    designs    for 

book  covers,  227. 
Eisen,  86. 
Erasmus,  5. 

Evans,  E.,  colour  printer,  277. 
Eve,  Nicolas,  57. 
Eve,  Clovis,  57. 

"  Fanfares,"  57. 

Ferriar,  182. 

Flameng,  334. 

Fournier,  Edouard,  14,  18. 

Fox,  C.  J.,   "Speeches"   bound 

in  fox  skin,  159. 
Francis  L,  5,  37. 


Index. 


339 


Francis  II.,  5. 

Fraser,  W.  Lewis,  312. 

Furniss,  Harry,  260. 

Gautier's  ''  Une  Nuit  de  Cleo- 
patre,"  159. 

German  binders  in  England,  147. 

German  bookbinding,  modern, 
144. 

Gilson,  finisher  for  William  Mat- 
thews, 106. 

Grasset,  M.,  245,  248. 

Gravelot,  86. 

Greenaway,  Kate,  278. 

Grolier,  6,  17,  18,  152. 

Grolier's  motto,  30. 

Grolier  and  the  Renascence,  5. 

Grolier  bindings,  21. 

Grolier  bookbinding  tools,  26. 

Grolier  Club,  291. 

Grolier  Club  building,  305. 

Grolier  Club  e.xhibition  of  book- 
bindings, T)2„  121. 

Grolier  Club  meetings  and  lec- 
tures, 311. 

Grolier  Club,  origin  of,  302. 

Grolier  Club  publications,  314. 

Gruel  and  Engelmann,  122. 

Gruel,  M.  Leon,  58. 

Guinti,  5. 

"Guirlande  de  Julie,"  58. 

Hannah,  G.,  312. 
Hardy-Dumennil,  126. 
Hawthorne,  334. 
Heber,  182. 
Henry  II.,  5,37,  54. 
Henry  II.  and  Diana  of  Poitiers, 
38. 


Henry  III.,  54. 
Henry  IV.,  53. 
Higginson,    Mrs.,  "Princess    of 

Java,"  209. 
Hildeburn,  C.  R.,  313. 
Hoe,  Robert,  302. 
Holbein's    "  Dance    of    Death," 

157- 
Holmes,  Dr.  Oliver  W.,  17. 
Horace,  g. 
Hugo's     "  Napoleon     le     Petit," 

bound  in  morocco  with  the 

"  Bee "  from  the  throne  of 

Napoleon  III.,  155. 
Hunt,  R.  M.,  135. 

Illuminated  horn-books,  271. 
Illustrated  children's  books,  237. 
Italian      bookbinding,     modern, 

144. 
Ives,  Brayton,  312. 

Jacquemart,  Jules,  204. 
Jansenists,  71. 
Joly,  122. 

Jones,  Owen,  ''Alhambra,"  bound 
by  Matthews,  106. 

Kalthoeber,  147. 
Keppel,  F.,  312. 
Kingsley,  Elbridge,  312. 
Knapp,  Professor,  312. 

La  Farge,  269. 

Lamartine,  1 17. 

Lamb's    "  Poetry   for   Children," 

210. 
Lang,  Andrew,  296. 
Latlnop,  Francis,  265. 


340 


Index. 


Laugel.   Auguste,   books    bound 

for  Napoleon  I.,  117. 
Laurin,  Marc,  his  motto,  33. 
Lavedan,  Henry,  252. 
Le  Gascon,  47,  58,  62. 
Leighton,  Archibald,  187. 
Le  Roux  de  Lincy,  5,  17,  30,  297. 
Lewis,  English  bookbinder,  118. 
Linton,  W.  J.,  312. 
Locker,    "  Lyra     Elegantiarum," 

307- 

Longepierre,  163. 

Lortic,  122. 

Loti,  P.,  162. 

Louis  XIL,  37. 

Louis  XI  n.  bookbinders  use  lace- 
makers'  designs,  79. 

Louis  XIV.,  bookbinding  during 
his  reign,  68. 

Louis  XV.,  72. 

Low,  Will  H.,  237. 

Magonigle,  Harold,  200. 

Maioli,  47,  152. 

Maioli  motto,  33. 

Mansfield,  H.,  312. 

Margaret  of  Valois,  54. 

Marius-Michel,  M.,43,  57,  122. 

Martial,  9. 

Mary  of  Cleves,  54. 

Matthews,  William,  62,  96,  143, 
144. 

Matthews,  W.,  ''Modern  Book- 
binding," etc.,  331. 

Matthews,  W.,  "  How  to  Work  a 
Design,"  106. 

Matthews,  W.,  "  Bookbinding 
Practically  Considered,"  96. 

Matthews,  Alfred,  143. 


Mazarin  Library,  43. 
Mazarine,  Cardinal,  66. 
Medici,  Cardinal  de,  9. 
Merson,  Luc  Oliver,  265. 
Moinaux,  Jules,  259. 
Molesworth,  Mrs.,  207. 
Monograms,  163. 
Monvel,  Boutet  de,  283. 
Moreau,  87. 
Morin.  Louis,  259. 
Morris,  William,  132. 
Morris,  W.,  "  Hopes  and   Fears 

for  Art,"   bound  by  Cobden- 

Sanderson,  138. 
Morris,  Miss  May,  136. 
Morse,  Miss  Alice  E.,  203. 

Niedree,  122. 
Nodier,  Charles,  57. 
Norton's    "  Political    American- 
isms," 208. 

Ogier,  Guillaume,  14. 
"  Our     Grandmothers'    Gowns," 
210. 

Padeloup,  '72,  152. 

Padeloup's  bookbinding  designs, 

80. 
"  Pandectarum  Juris  Florentini," 

43- 
Parsons,  Alfred,  223. 
Payne,  Roger,  89,  117. 
Pennell,  Joseph,  237,  242. 
Petit,  R..  153. 
Petrarch,  10. 
Pictorial  poster,  246. 
Picture-book   covers   in   France, 

251. 


Index. 


341 


Picture  posters  in  Italy,  249. 

"  Philobiblon "  of  Richard  de 
Bury,  publislied  by  the 
Grolier  Club,  212,  326. 

Plantin,  48. 

Poulet-Malassis's      "  Ex-Libris," 

153- 
Prime,  W.  C,  312. 
Printers  (early)  as  bookbinders, 

176. 
Pyle,  Howard,  design  for  "Robin 

Hood,"  223. 

Quaritch's  "  Catalogue  of  Book- 
bindings," 107,  126. 

Quentin-Bauchard,  "  Daphnis  at 
Chloe,"  72. 

Quinet,  122. 

Reed,  Sir  Charles  Reed's  Sons, 

329- 

Remington,  illustrations  to  Long- 
fellow's "  Hiawatha,"  227. 

Renascence,  6. 

Rhead,  Louis  J.,  143. 

Ricordi,  250. 

Rice,  Prof.  R.  R.,  312. 

Riis's  "How  the  Other  Half 
Lives,"  210. 

Ris,  Clement  de,  30,  53. 

Riviere,  147.  ' 

Robida's  "  Rabelais,"  249. 

Romola,  14. 

Rossi,  M.,  design  for  "L'lmmor- 
tel,"  238. 

Rouveyre,  M.,  on  German  bind- 
ings, 148. 

Ruban,  122. 


Scaliger,  his  motto,  33. 
Schwabe,  Carloz,  "  Le  Reve,"  256. 
'•Sette  of  Odd  Volumes,"  311. 
Sherwin,  Harold  B.,  271. 
Shugio,  H.,  312. 
Silversmiths  in  France,  9. 
Simonetti,  250. 
Smith,  R.,  143. 
"  Societe  des  Amis  des  Livres," 

309- 
Staggemeier,  147. 
Stamped   designs  for   the  whole 

side  of  a  book,  178. 
Stamped  leather,  216. 
Steinlen,  M.,  256. 
Stevenson,  R.  L.,  271. 
Stevens,  Henry,  122. 
Stevens,  Alfred,  175. 
Stikeman,  143. 
Sturgis,  Russell,  312. 

Thibaron,  120. 
Thoreau,  192. 
Thouvenin,  57. 
Tiffany  &  Co.,  160. 
Tory,  Geoffroy,  18,  76. 
Trautz,  119,  126,  147,  166. 
Trautz-Bauzonnet,  287. 
Tree  calf,  158. 

Uzanne,  Octave,  "  La  Reluire 
Moderne,"  108. 

Uzanne,  "  Caprices  d'un  Bibli- 
ophile," 157. 

Vedder,  E.,  200,  237,  265. 
Vergil,  9. 
Voltaire,  17. 

Walther,  147. 


342 


Index. 


Warner,    "Clothes    of  Fiction,"'' 

237- 

Water-colours  painted  under  the 
gilt  edges  of  leaves,  215. 

West,  Prof.  A.  F.,  312,  327. 

Wheatley,  Henr\-  B.,  175. 

White,  Stanford,  175,  265. 

White,  Stanford,  design  for 
"Book  of  Tile  Club,"  212. 

White,  Stanford,  design  for  Cen- 
tury Dictionary,  220. 


Whitman,  Mrs.,  175,  200. 
Whitman,      Mrs.,      design      for 

"  Strangers  and  Wayfarers," 

etc.,  210. 
Willette,  M.,  245,  248,  255. 
Woodberry's  "  History  of  Wood 

Engraving,"  203. 

Zaehnsdorf,  "Art  of  Bookbind- 
ing,'' 10 1,  129. 


J 


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